Compensation Study Frequently Asked Questions

PAQs will be sent to the email address on file for each employee in MUNIS. If you are enrolled in direct deposit, the PAQ email will go to the same email address where you receive your biweekly check stub. For employees without access to email, a paper PAQ will be made available.  Please check your inboxes (including junk mail or spam) for an email from admin@bakertillyusprod.appiancloud.com, titled “Position Analysis Questionnaire Survey Invitation”.

The PAQ process prioritizes transparency; supervisors will review, evaluate, and comment on (if needed) employee responses.

If you and a group of other employees within your agency have the same position description, classification, and job duties, it is recommended that you complete a group PAQ. 

One person in the group can be designated to submit the PAQ response for everyone. Baker Tilly (paqsupport@bakertilly.com), HR, and/or your supervisor should then be advised who the PAQ was submitted by, which employees it applies to, the class title, and dates of hire and dates in position for each employee. Coordination of group PAQs would be done at the employee level.

*You can do this as a paper PAQ if your group would prefer.

No. The scope of the Compensation Study does not include creating career ladders.

They should answer Yes to that question and will then be asked about specific roles they are responsible for in that capacity.

No, staffing level analysis or recommendations are not part of this study.

No. In terms of the individual employee, their specific salary will be reviewed to determine if an adjustment is needed to their pay with respect to the study results.

Employee should list their current essential duties that represent at least 10% of their workload. They should not include duties they are performing on a temporary basis.

Use the date of rehire in these cases.

An email should be sent to paqsupport@bakertilly.com notifying them who the PAQ was submitted by, which employees it applies to, the class title, and dates of hire and dates in position for each employee.

You should list the minimum level of education you believe is required to fulfill the duties of the position. For many City positions, there would not be a minimum educational requirement needed to perform the work. Minimum level of education is listed on our class specifications at https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/MadisonWi/classspecs, 

The direct supervisor should review the PAQs for their direct reports.

The Mayor, Mayor's Chief of Staff, or Mayoral Deputies will complete review for Department Heads.

A compensation study is a review of current pay practices and salaries compared to similar organizations. These studies determine market value of each position, propose equitable salary ranges and ensure internal pay parity that can attract, engage and retain employees.

A PAQ is a Position Analysis Questionnaire and is a valuable tool used by Human Resources and Compensation Analysts to obtain comprehensive and objective information about a position to complete an analysis.  You are encouraged to fill out a PAQ either as an individual or in a group (where there is more than one person in a classification), to ensure our vendor has up to date and accurate information about your position.

To see how competitive the City’s pay and benefits are for employees when compared to peer organizations. A good compensation study enables the City to make better decisions when changing or updating the salary schedule, deciding on new or updated benefits, and/or other compensation decisions.

No. Compensation studies help provide information on appropriate wage rates for existing jobs and existing job duties.

No. The City will not reduce any existing pay, regardless of what the study finds. The City is committed to implementing the findings of the compensation study without reducing wages for any employees.

Compensation studies are typically conducted by an external evaluator- a consultant hired by the City. That consultant will evaluate our existing job classifications against comparable positions at other organizations through a process that typically includes:

• Development of goals and a scope of work with input from employees at every level of the organization.
• Research to define, value, and analyze market data to show how the City compares to other organizations in the market.
• Internal position descriptions are matched to external jobs with similar responsibilities to identify market rate for each position.
• Data is collected from multiple sources to determine average compensation for specific positions/classifications. (This step may also include an analysis for full compensation package including benefits, retirement, and other non-salary benefits.)
• HR will share the information and recommendations with decision makers and employees at every level of the City.

A compensation study was completed in the mid-1990’s.

The Human Resources Department has contracted with Baker Tilley for the full Compensation Study Plan analysis and recommendations.

The compensation study will rely, in part, on position descriptions for each job. Your job duties must be accurately described in the position description for your job. If you do not have an updated position description, please submit a new position description to your supervisor for review after reading these instructions. HR will need all position descriptions completed by the end of the year, so please do this by December 1, 2023.

Human Resources will develop and publish a request for proposals (RFP) in June of 2023 to choose a vendor to complete a compensation study. The study is expected to extend into 2024, and we intend to have results from the compensation study by the second quarter of 2025. The results will be published organizationally, and then recommendations for changes needed will need to go to the Mayor and Common council for review, action, and implementation through the City’s budget process.

• Specific changes and their effective date will be dependent upon the timeline of the results of the study, with any actual implementation requiring budget approval by the Mayor and Common Council.
• Implementation of any recommendations often requires multiple budget cycles.

Please reach out to us at HR@cityofmadison.com.  You can also see slides from the employee presentation, or watch videos of the presentation on our main compensation study page.

Labor associations/unions were invited to be part of the Compensation Study Steering Committee and have been participating in planning meetings with Human Resources.

These positions have not yet been determined, however they will likely be positions that are commonly found in other organizations as well.

Baker Tilly has already started creating a growing list of comparable organizations based on feedback from agency heads (UW, some cities, any organization that has similar services). Human Resources and the Steering Committee will provide additional feedback as well.

No. The scope of the Compensation Study does not include creating career ladders.

Baker Tilly will make a comparison of the City’s pay policies, including pay differentials, against the market. Additionally, Baker Tilly will make recommendations for new or adjustments to existing pay policies, which includes pay differentials.