Title
The Board of Water Commissioner for the City of Detroit Water and Sewerage Department approves the amended Official Compensation Schedule and authorizes the Director to take such action as may be necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote.
Body
Agenda of September 17, 2025
Item No. 2025-213
TO: The Honorable
Board of Water Commissioners
City of Detroit, Michigan
FROM: Tiffany Jones, Interim Director of Human Resources/Organizational Development
Detroit Water & Sewerage Department
RE: Official Compensation Schedule
MOTION
Upon recommendation of Tiffany Jones, Interim Director of Human Resources & Organizational Development, the Board of Water Commissioners for the City of Detroit Water and Sewerage Department approves the amended Official Compensation Schedule and authorizes the Director to take such action as may be necessary to accomplish the intent of this vote.
BACKGROUND/JUSTIFICATION
To increase its competitiveness in the market by attracting new talent and improving employee retention, the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department (DWSD) conducted a compensation study. The goal was to compare DWSD’s pay ranges with the market and create job classifications that better reflect employees’ actual duties and responsibilities.
The process began January 2024, when DWSD hired the American Society of Employers (ASE) to perform a market evaluation of all job classifications. Before ASE’s review, DWSD’s Human Resources team surveyed employees to clarify their job duties and identify any existing working titles. From this, HR developed updated job titles and descriptions, which were then provided to ASE for benchmarking.
For the market evaluation, ASE compared DWSD’s jobs to similar roles in the market. ASE sampled Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) and Metro Detroit market. If Metro Detroit wasn't available, then they looked at Michigan and then National. To be considered a match, at least 70% of a job’s responsibilities, requirements, and overall content had to align. ASE used compensation data from sources including the American Water Works Association (AWWA), ASE, PayFactors Compensation, and the Economic Research Institute (ERI). These sources include both public and private sector data across industries, with emphasis on manufacturing and wastewater organizations. Where necessary, adjustments were made for differences such as job scope, education, or experience, but no adjustment exceeded 25%. For the purposes of this study, jobs were priced using the 65th percentile as opposed to the standard 50th percentile. This was in alignment with the approach that GLWA took when completing a similar exercise in years prior, and allowed DWSD to remain competitive with local organizations
The results showed that DWSD was paying at or above market rates for only 62.5% of its existing jobs (not counting newly created positions). DWSD defines “At Market” as paying at least 95% of the market rate. Alongside the market review, ASE developed a salary structure that assigns each job to a grade with an associated pay range.
DWSD HR submitted, under separate cover, the amended Official Compensation Schedule (salary ranges), for your review. The document shows the job title, current minimum and maximum ranges and the proposed minimum and maximum ranges. The titles with no current ranges are the newly created titles. Union classifications are not included and will be presented to the board separately.
We respectfully request that your Honorable Body approve the new schedule.