City approves raises for non-union staff

Brandon City Council voted last week to give retroactive raises to dozens of non-union employees.

At its July 27 meeting, council was told that salaries for the positions are 16.4 per cent lower than comparable municipalities and the proposed increase would bring the city to within four per cent.

“Looking at comparable municipalities, the research is that the City of Brandon is significantly behind,” city human resources manager Lola Oyeladun said.

“The city is not currently in a competitive position to recruit and retain staff,” she said.

The city describes the change as “a four per cent market adjustment,” though “it does not automatically result in every employee receiving exactly a four per cent increase, as individual outcomes depend on placement within the updated structure,” city spokesperson Merrilea Metcalf told the Sun last week.

It affects positions like engineers, clerks, accountants, HR workers and some managers, the city said.

The initial bump, which was retroactive to July 1, affects about 90 city employees. It will be phased in over multiple years.

Council members approved the change in an 8-1 vote.

Oyeladun told council that when a review was started in the summer of 2024, non-union staff had informed the city that their wages weren’t competitive and needed to increase.

The last market adjustment for non-union employees was done in 2011. While non-unionized workers were still able to get raises during the last 15 years, this adjustment changes the pay scale, Metcalf said.

Oyeladun said while the adjustment doesn’t completely close the gap between Brandon and other municipalities, it is better than the current situation.

The plan will take an “extended period” to be completed, with no concrete answer given by the city as to how long it will take.

Oyeladun said people are typically looking for positions that pay more, and better benefits, when switching jobs.

“Having a more competitive wage structure will support our recruitment and retention strategy. It will enable us to attract and retain staff,” she said.

Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said some employees are not just leaving to work in a similar position in a different municipality, but also staying in the city and working for a different organization.

“We’re not even competitive locally,” he said.

The city’s wages “pale” in comparison to other public organizations in Brandon, like the university, college and regional health authority, he added.

“We have not been competitive, and we’ve been losing people that stay in the city, and that’s concerning.”

He said the city has also been building a better culture.

“We actually do want to be the place people come to work, that that’s their choice when they choose to live in Brandon.”

Fawcett said the staff raises won’t have an impact on the city’s finances this year, but would result in one per cent increases to the city’s budget for the next two years.

Council, he said, will be telling staff to find ways to make the budget as “tight” as it can and to “make sure we’re finding other efficiencies.”

He said with the higher pay scale that hopefully Brandon would be able to recruit from other similarly-sized municipalities, instead of the Wheat City being a “feeding ground to send really good people out to other jobs.”

Coun. Glen Parker (Ward 9) was the only member who voted against the change, saying he would have preferred that it take place over a longer period of time.

“To try to fix it in one year or, you know, two years short term, I think, is challenging,” Parker said. “I think we should have maybe stretched it out over a little bit more time.”

Councillors Kris Desjarlais (Ward 2) and Bruce Luebke (Ward 6) weren’t at the meeting.

The proposal to increase non-union staff salaries came out of a committee of council and was voted on after a verbal committee report.

No public documents — which typically have background information on the topic — were included as part of the agenda package.

» alambert@brandonsun.com