Friday March 29th, 2024 9:02AM

Flowery Branch looks to make employee pay more competitive

FLOWERY BRANCH – Flowery Branch city leaders heard the results of a “Salary Study” conducted by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at their city council meeting Thursday evening, and now will take time to digest and analyze the University of Georgia think-tank’s recommendations.

“Right now we have a position open in the Public Works Department that we haven’t even had anyone apply for,” City Manager Bill Andrew told city council members, informing them of the difficulty in staffing the city’s departments.

Flowery Branch, like many other municipalities across northeast Georgia, is experiencing the two-edged sword of high employment:  it means there is economic success in their jurisdiction, so city and county leaders tout that fact, but it also means that the governments themselves are probably having difficulty attracting and retaining qualified personnel.

“I’ve been here a little over 11 years and when I came onboard the city was in the middle of working with Carl Vinson Institute of Government on a survey,” Andrew explained.  “And at that time the council had decided to basically do a two-step implementation (of creating an attractive and structured pay scale for city employees).”

“One step was taken; the other never was, and then we had the downturn and basically we feel our pay structure has gotten off from maybe what it should be…and needs to be updated.”

“We’ve have had trouble just even recruiting with the Police Department,” Andrew added.  “I think everyone is having that issue now, buy, yeah, our Public Works Department and Waste Water Department…it’s hard to get people to apply.”

Andrew said the city spent roughly $6000 to conduct the study and will consider the recommendations made by CVIOG in light of the city’s budget.  Implementing a structured pay scale, as well as renaming and organizing job categories, would be a vital part of any action the city decides to pursue.

Later in the meeting Andrew said his office in the interim was trying to show appreciation to city employees in non-traditional fashion.

Notes and small gifts are part of his strategy.  “We really don’t have a Human Resources Department here per se…so we’re working on ways of one department supporting another department,” Andrew said.

 

PARKLETS 

Bill Andrew said Flowery Branch would soon build “parklets” for downtown businesses to offer their customers and have them available for use this fall.

He said Gainesville has already implemented parklets on their downtown square.

“There’s actually one in Gainesville, they kind of beat us to it,” Andrew said.

“Basically, we want to take a couple of our diagonal parking spaces and design a space that will be flush with the sidewalk that can be a seating area for one of the restaurants or just a place to sit and enjoy,” Andrew said.

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