The Honolulu Salary Commission seeks authority to hire an outside contractor to conduct a city salary study.

As proposed, the study would gather more information on how the City and County of Honolulu might set its future salaries as city leaders attempt to draw and keep new workers to local government jobs.

In an April 15 memorandum to Council Chair Tommy Waters, Salary Commission Chair Malia Espinda requests that the Council authorize $100,000 for the development of a new salary study as well as gain support from the Council’s administrative service officer and Office of Council Services to develop and execute a request for proposals “for a qualified third party expert to conduct the salary study.”

If approved, the action would not affect the city’s upcoming 2024 fiscal year operating budget — proposed at $3.41 billion — which is still under City Council scrutiny prior to its possible adoption in early June. However, the requested salary study does pave the way for potential pay increases in later years and would help fill the city’s stated 3,000 vacancies in its workforce.

“It is the hope of the Commission that by investing in this research, future Commissions will be able to make well-informed salary recommendations that will allow the City to attract, hire and retain the top talent needed to lead our City government,” Espinda said, adding the proposed salary study will seek more information regarding “the salaries for officials and employees comparable to those set by the Salary Commission for the City in similarly sized municipalities nationally, in the neighbor island counties, and in the private sector.”

Espinda noted the Salary Commission had established a subcommittee — called a Permitted Interaction Group, or PIG — in order “to better understand the marketplace for future years” and “investigate the possibility of conducting a salary study.”

Moreover, she asserted the city has not completed a salary study in recent years.

“We know that government employee wages that lag significantly behind the private sector can tie the hands of leadership as they seek to attract and hire talent in an increasingly selective labor market,” Espinda’s memo reads. “Additionally, it is the Commission’s understanding that the difficulty in retention of key staff continues to plague the City. Ensuring that providing salaries that are competitive with those in the private sector and other governmental employers will help stave off continued retention challenges.”

Meanwhile, the Salary Commission’s request for a study follows that panel’s recommendations in March to give salary increases of 12.5% and greater to the mayor and city department heads and an over 60% pay boost to members of the City Council.

On March 21 the Salary Commission — its members appointed by the Council and mayor and using recommendations from the same PIG panel advancing the use of a salary study — recommended pay raises that would see the mayor’s annual salary rise to $209,856 from its current $186,432.

Likewise, the yearly salary for the City Council chair — the seat that leads the nine-member panel — would see its current $76,968 boosted to $123,292, a 60.2% jump, while an individual Council member’s salary would get a 64.4% pay bump, to $113,292 from $68,904.

Under the recommendations, elected and appointed department heads and their deputies also would see 12.56% pay raises. They include $200,712 for the managing director’s position over the current pay of $178,320, and the elected prosecuting attorney’s pay would rise to $198,888 from the position’s current salary of $176,000. The chief of police would see a bump in pay to $231,648 from the current annual salary of $205,800, while the fire chief would get $224,304 rather than the current $199,272.

The full City Council will have to approve these pay increases in order for them to take effect.

Nola Miyasaki, director of the city Department of Human Resources, previously told the Honolulu Star- Advertiser that the Salary Commission had not recommended pay adjustments for department heads and the city’s top elected officials in the past three years.

Miyasaki added that most of the city’s 21 department directors earn an average annual salary of $166,560.