Haldimand "My Chat with Jim Dover from Haldimand County"

Last Wednesday I received a phone call from Jim Dover, Manager of Human Resources for Haldimand County. This phone call was in regards to my letter to the editor on March 14th, 2008 in the Sachem. The original post was regarding Haldimand County employees that make over $100,000.00 a year.

We spoke on the phone in depth about “Pay Equity” and “retroactive pay”. There was also some conversation about “comparative” Salaries. I questioned Jim on the comparisons of these positions in particular with the Manager of Corporate Services. As I stated in my blog Norfolk and Brant have a higher tax base, yet Haldimand County pays much higher salaries. Jim explained to me that they did not compare these with Norfolk or Brant, the comparison was with Niagara and Hamilton. I didn’t quite get that, but that is what they did.

If you compare Haldimand with Hamilton in population and tax base, there is nothing to compare too. Haldimand population…..42,000......... Hamilton......... population 503,000, but who am I, and what would I know about these issues?

Jim said that he would send me the reports that had the background information on the “Pay Equity”. Well what I received today is a document called the “Pay Equity Plan”, this is posted for all employees of Haldimand County. The reports that Jim was talking about are “confidential” and he could not send these to me. That makes perfect sense to me that these reports he was talking about would be "confidential", as stated that Grades above "14" are "contracted" positions.

As I was reading this “Pay Equity Plan” on page two it states:

Grades 14 through 17 “are not” included in the Non-Union Pay Equity Plan as positions in these grades are considered “anomalies” in that they are contract positions.

Well there you have it! Most of the Managers and Employees that are listed in the $100,000.00 dollar club are in Grade 14 and above, in particular Manager of Corporate Services.

Jim clarified that Haldimand County also did a “salary comparison” of Managers with Hamilton and Niagara, this was nothing more than a Salary increase in my opinion.

Now I am sure that Haldimand County would have liked me to do a “correction” or a “clarification” on my blog, but as you can see, for me this was not possible.

There is a huge difference between “Pay Equity” and “Pay Comparison”. The reasons behind comparing Haldimand with Hamilton are not justified. This council should have seen this and been "proactive" and "fiscally responsible".

I stick to my original story and that is the end of this story.