The next edition of our Budget Chronicles Series is with the City of Minot’s Human Resources department. Headed by Lisa Jundt, their mission, according to the city website, “is to provide support to all City departments and employees, to assist them in providing better service for the residents of Minot.”
To begin, the HR department is requesting a total budget of $1,005,771 for the 2025 budget, which is up 24.37% from the previous year’s $808,689. The vast majority of that will be going towards a proposed new employee to be added to help with some of the staffing needs at their office.
At the Special Meeting hosted by the City Council on July 30 for a Q&A on the budget with staff, HR director Lisa Jundt would most notably be questioned on the new proposed pay plans for Minot City employees in 2025. Jundt would go over the proposed plans which include 3 separate proposals: a step-based increase where all employees get a guaranteed nominal increase. The second proposal is a market-based raise that would be offered only to those whose position has fallen behind the market average for their position, which would leave some employees without any salary increase. Finally, the City’s preferred system would be a hybrid proposal of the two where the city chooses the best option for the employee, guaranteeing an increase, and giving positions that may have fallen behind market standards a raise to better match those figures.
City Councilman Rob Fuller would push back by bringing up the fact that city employees would have received over $7.1million in raises over the past 4 years. He would ask Jundt if she believed it would be “a sustainable way to give raises”, to which she would reply, “No, and I've identified that for the last two years that i don't believe this plan is sustainable. So, moving ahead when we hopefully do our salary survey next year, we're going to be looking at a structure survey as well.”
To increase efficiency, the department has also proposed a new employee for their office. They would be a generalist along with most current staff and would assist in alleviating the department's workload.
View the City Council Special Meeting Q&A here: Minot City Council Special Meeting 7/30/24 (youtube.com)
