photo by: Contributed

Douglas County Administrator Sarah Plinsky

Earlier this month, Douglas County commissioners approved a raise of more than $41,000 for County Administrator Sarah Plinsky, following reports that her salary was below that of comparable peers.

The raise — which amounted to a 19% base salary increase to $255,091 — created a straightforward question: Exactly whom was Douglas County’s administrator position compared to?

An investigation by the Journal-World found that the answer isn’t straightforward, and currently isn’t known by the county commissioners who approved the raise, let alone the public. A county spokeswoman confirmed to the Journal-World that the consultant hired to conduct a wage study for the county did not provide a list of positions or communities that were used as comparable positions for the county administrator analysis.

The spokeswoman referred the Journal-World to human resources group McGrath, the consultant hired by the county. In an interview with the Journal-World, McGrath CEO Victoria McGrath did not disclose which positions her company evaluated, the salaries associated with those positions, or the communities where those positions are based.

While she said the group would not provide the Journal-World with the list of positions that were compared to Plinsky’s position, as a practice, they do not publicly disclose specific employment findings within their compensation analysis reports.

The lack of information about the process has raised questions about whether the Douglas County position was compared to those in much larger communities, which oversee significantly greater personnel and budgets.

A review of publicly available salary data by the Journal-World suggests that the consultants used the Johnson County administrator position as a comparable role. While the consultants did not confirm this, they did inform commissioners of a range regarding salary levels for positions directly comparable to the county administrator position. Notably, the highest salary in that range — $333,378 — matches the current salary for the Johnson County administrator.

Johnson County’s government has more than 4,000 employees and a budget of more than $1 billion, according to information from a Johnson County spokesperson. Douglas County has 506 employees and a budget of almost $184 million, according to county budget documents.

The Journal-World asked commissioners Karen Willey and Patrick Kelly for comments about how they thought the size of organizations should be factored into the salary comparison, and also why commissioners were comfortable approving the 19% pay increase for Plinsky without such information.

Neither commissioner answered specific questions sent to them via e-mail. Willey did provide a general statement to the Journal-World, and said she was pleased that the county was able to offer the raise, and noted the county was using the same methodology that it used for other county employees.

“As a result, a professional woman in charge of a complex organization, who was underpaid relative to her peers, will now be compensated equitably relative to her peers,” Willey said via email.

In his emailed statement to the Journal-World, Kelly did not comment on the size discrepancy between organizations and how it should factor into the county’s compensation strategy. He declined to discuss details of the discussion further, noting that the vote had already been taken.

For its part, the consultant told the Journal-World that it will eliminate outliers outside of its established average, but didn’t provide any additional details.

“We’re very cautious, regardless if it’s the county administrator or if it’s an administrative assistant, to make sure that we have positions that align as much as they can with the comparable data,” McGrath said.

However, the Journal-World’s review does indicate that McGrath chose to eliminate an outlier on the low end of the range, while leaving Johnson County’s position in on the high end.

The city manager for the city of Leavenworth has a base salary of $150,000, a spokesperson with the city told the Journal-World. The city of Leavenworth was one of 12 organizations that McGrath identified as being a potential competitor to Douglas County government for employee talent.

While McGrath wouldn’t disclose whether the city of Leavenworth was part of the analysis used for the Douglas County administrator position, it appears that it was not. McGrath provided the range of salaries that were used in the Douglas County administrator analysis, and the lowest was $213,009.

The city of Leavenworth is a smaller entity than Douglas County government, with 252 employees and a budget of about $54 million. However, the city of Leavenworth’s operations are much closer in size to Douglas County’s operations than Douglas County’s operations are to Johnson County’s. For example, Douglas County has about twice as many employees as Leavenworth County, but Johnson County has about eight times as many employees as Douglas County.

While McGrath provided a range of comparable positions, it also developed one for the county administrator role based on a recent countywide classification and compensation study approved in October. This study aligns salaries with the 70th percentile of area wages, meaning Douglas County employees would earn more than 70% of similar positions in the region, rather than the top 50%.

Plinsky’s compensation range, reflecting the 70th percentile, spanned from $216,174 to $313,645. A highly experienced administrator with many years of experience would be toward the top of this range, while an administrator with very little experience would be near the bottom of this range. This range helped McGrath determined Plinsky’s new base salary at $255,091.

Commissioners have stated that they intend to use that wage study over the course of several years to inform millions of dollars in wage increases for county employees as part of an effort to better compete for new employees and retain existing ones.

Willey told the Journal-World that it is critical the wage adjustments be made because wages for county employees are consistently below similar positions in Lawrence and the Kansas City metro area.

“I hope we can continue to overcome modest wage gaps, but it would be naive to think we could retain quality staff against large and growing wage deficits compared to our neighbors, if we continue to fall behind,” Willey said via email.

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Regional governmental agencies and their city managers/county administrators positions in comparison to Douglas County Administrator Sarah Plinsky.

Regional results

Given that specific salary comparisons weren’t available as part of the wage study itself, the Journal-World filed a series of open records requests and other inquiries with governments in the region for salary information about their top administrators.

The Journal-World confined its search to 11 municipal or county governments that were mentioned in the McGrath report as competitors to Douglas County in the labor market. They are: the cities of Lawrence, Leavenworth, Lenexa, Olathe, Overland Park, and Shawnee, plus the counties of Johnson, Leavenworth, Riley, Sedgwick and Shawnee.

For reasons that remain unclear, the Unified Government of Kansas City, Kan., and Wyandotte County was excluded from McGrath’s list, despite its proximity. Similarly, the city of Manhattan, a comparable college community, and the city of Topeka, which sees a large number of Lawrence residents commuting regularly, were also left out.

Plinsky’s new salary comparison to the 11 organizations varies depending on whether the position is being compared exclusively to other county managers or if city managers are also included in the comparison.

When looking only at county administrator positions, the Douglas County position went from having the lowest salary on the list to, after the raise, having the second-highest salary on the list. The jump, however, isn’t as dramatic as it might sound because there are only four counties in the group that have a county administrator. Shawnee and Riley counties do not have county administrators, so other employees assume responsibilities typically assigned to the county administrator.

Plinsky’s previous salary of $213,762 was approximately $5,000 less than that of the next-highest-paid position, the county administrator of Leavenworth County. Following the raise, Plinsky’s new salary of $255,091 is roughly $20,000 more than the salary of the county administrator of Sedgwick County, which includes Wichita and has a government workforce of over 3,200 employees. However, Plinsky’s salary is still about $78,000 lower than that of the administrator in Johnson County, the state’s largest county, which is also considered one of the 100 wealthiest counties in the United States.

The comparison changes when city managers are factored in. Prior to the raise, the Douglas County position was the second-lowest among the combined list of city and county officials. After the raise, however, it rises to fourth-highest among the top 10 positions. Plinsky’s new base salary is now $83 higher than that of Craig Owens, the city manager of Lawrence, but it remains about $15,000 less than the salary of the city manager of Olathe, who ranks just above her.

Although it is unclear which specific positions McGrath used to inform the recommendation for the Douglas County position, McGrath told the Journal-World that city manager positions are sometimes used when evaluating county administrator roles.

“It might be a city manager, it might be a county administrator, but we’re going to ensure that those roles have a similar job complexity,” McGrath said.

In Kansas, while the roles of county administrator and city manager share some similarities, there are also important differences. For example, most city managers are responsible for overseeing all departments within a city government. In contrast, county government is typically more divided. In Douglas County, for instance, there are five elected officials who oversee major functions of the county government: the sheriff, county clerk, district attorney, register of deeds and treasurer.

The Journal-World asked both Willey and Kelly for comments on their views on how the differences between the positions should be accounted for in compensation strategies. Neither provided email responses to those questions.

— Editor Chad Lawhorn contributed to this report.