This study is a few years old now, but still very informative for comparing our salaries over time. Since it was published, all City employees received a 2% cost of living salary adjustment (COLA) for 2004. However, the issue of COLA's and increments are to be addressed in 2004.

What has been happening to our salaries?

THE QUESTION: This is something that many of us are wondering about and P.A.C.E. has every intention of addressing this issue and making it a principal part of our 5 year plan. However, this is not to say that any less attention will be centered on pension or other key issues. These are still very much at the core of our focus. We are simply broadening our scope to include an evaluation of our salaries compared to the rise in the cost of living.

THE PROBLEM: This can be a somewhat complicated issue because not all of our salaries have been effected in the same way over time. Lately it has increasingly become the trend for raises or one time payments to target a specific group rather than being across-the-board cost of living increases. This is an attempt to simplify some of the confusion that has been created and focus on just our pay vs. inflation. Obviously, there is much more to this problem than presented here. The tools and rationale for this evaluation are explained with the accompanying charts below. Following that, there is a more in depth discussion and historical perspective on payroll changes that have impacted our earnings in the last decade.

The third and final chart depicts what our earnings have done during the period. The increase was 7.45% total which equates to a 1.24% annual average. In other words, our earnings fell 10.51%16.78%! behind inflation. More importantly, when compared to how workers in general did, we fell behind by These figures are computed based on a composite made up of 8 different job classifications at pay grades 9, 11, 13, 17, 21, 24, 27 and 35. It is not a true average for all City of Atlanta employees. Supporting tabular data is available.

Going back even further

To take this study even further, similar figures have been compiled for the period 1989 to present. This is a more difficult undertaking because of the D.M.G. pay and classification study that was implemented in the spring of 1995. When that was put into place, our payroll system changed from the old "pay range" basis to the current "pay grade" numbers. In addition, job classification codes and job class titles were changed. Therefore, compiling these figures for a period that extends back beyond 1995 is a more tedious and demanding task as far as the City figures are concerned. Deriving the CPI-U figures and average U.S. production workers figures can be done in the same manner as above - it just involves the same data for a few additional years. For the period of 1989 to June of 2001 the CPI-U shows an increase of 41.0%. During that time, U.S. workers gained 44.76%, once again doing a little better than inflation. The City of Atlanta composite of pay grades 9, 11, 13, 17, 21, 24, 27 and 25 for the same period gained only 23.32%. That is a loss compared to inflation of 17.68% and 21.44% when compared to U.S. workers for the same time period. In an attempt to be brief, the charts for 1989 to June, 2001 have not been displayed here but they are available along with the supporting tabular data.

The Historical Perspective

1. Since 1990 general (non-sworn) employees have received cost of living increases as outlined below. Some of these are across the board and others only target selected pay grades. Other raises for sworn personnel only were also given during this period but are not shown here.

2. In 1994, a change to the Federal Income Tax Code made employee pension contributions non-taxable instead of being taxed as ordinary income as they had been previously. This would have made a significant increase in our take home pay except for the fact that the City took advantage of the tax code change by shifting 3% of the pension contribution burden from the City side to the employee side. The net effect of these two changes was that employee take home pay did increase, but only slightly instead of by the full intended amount had the tax savings gone into effect without the 3% additional employee pension burden due to the shift.

3. Our annual salary increments have been frozen in 1994 for one year and again in 1995 for 9 months. The 1994 freeze was a full year for everyone. The impact of the 1995 freeze was dependant upon when your increment date was in relation to when the freeze went into effect and when it was lifted. The wages that were lost during the time when you should have been receiving your increment were never made up.

4. The D.M.G. Pay and Classification Study was implemented in the spring of 1995. It may have caused your earnings to go up a little or quite significantly and some other classifications had their pay reduced. Current employees that were in the classes that were reduced were placed in the "Step 99" category, which caused their pay to freeze. Anyone newly hired into a classification that fell under the "Step 99" rule receives less pay than what the equivalent "pre-D.M.G." classification would have received.

On this page we have attempted to answer the question, "What has happened to our salaries over the last 5 to 10 years?". The points that are being made here only address the major, easily quantifiable issues but, hopefully, the conclusions are very clear. We realize that this is just the beginning and that there is much more to be done. For instance, the last pay and classification study was implemented more than 6 years ago in April of 1995. Haven't things changed significantly since then? There is quite a bit of evidence to support the fact that there are many City job classifications that are being woefully underpaid compared to current industry standards. In short, it's time to call for another pay and classification study but, this time, one that is accurate, fair and credible. To fully promote these initiatives and move them forward WE NEED YOUR HELP How? By doing one simple thing - sign a membership card and join PACE. Do you need to find out how? Follow the link for "How do I sign up?" or send an email to us at mail@paceatlanta.org and request enough cards for everyone at your work location.

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