The Natrona County School District Board of Trustees approved a $55,995 contract with Education Management Solutions during their Monday, March 11 school board meeting.
Education Management Solutions will conduct a study that the district will use to ensure NCSD staff are being fairly compensated. Superintendent Steve Hopkins said that the company has access to data from school districts across the country and will compare NCSD to demographically similar districts.
“The goal of this work is to ensure that staff are paid fairly in our current market,” a school board document states. “The last adjustment was done in 2014-15 and the last full scale study was undertaken in 2006.”
“Educational Management Solutions (EMS) is recognized as a leader in providing consulting, training and software solutions specifically
targeted to meet the Human Resource needs of school systems across the Nation,” the document reads.
“Exclusively working with school systems since 1997, EMS clients have included school systems throughout the United States. EMS has an unmatched breadth of expertise gained from previous work in both the private and public sectors.”
Date collection for the study will begin in April, according the board document. That will include individual interviews with staff as well as focus groups.
The study will provide the district with evaluations of its job descriptions and classifications.
“A study that is done by a non-partial, non-biased market study would provide actionable data for NCSD to use in recruitment and equity among staff for the foreseeable future,” the school board document states.
Hopkins said during Monday’s Budget Committee meeting that he thought it would be healthy for the district to have a third party’s perspective. He said that information about job classifications across the country was important because those can vary drastically from district to district.
The study’s final report is expected in June 2019, while software customization including information from the study should occur in July.
