LOXLEY – Loxley town officials plan a salary study to determine what they can do when, as with other smaller municipalities, they have to compete with larger cities to hire and keep employees.

The Loxley Town Council voted unanimously Monday, Jan. 31, to hire Evergreen Solutions to conduct a salary study. The study will cost $18,500 and is scheduled to be completed in about 90 days, Mayor Richard Teal said.

The mayor said candidates who apply for positions held by workers who have been with Loxley for more than 25 years now expect similar pay to the retiring employees as an entry level salary.

He said the city is facing more competition in hiring workers and other agencies are paying employees higher salaries.

“I think we need to do a study to figure out what we’re going to do with our salaries,” Teal said. “I can tell you this, with the interview process and things that anybody can tell you who’s hiring employees is, they’re not there. You’re competing with the Daphnes, with the Robertsdales, with the Fairhopes. That’s where we’re at nowadays and it’s unfortunate.”

Teal said the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office pays a starting salary of about $23 an hour for deputies.

“We’ve got people are not actually making $23 who’ve been here five or six years and then when you try to go to hire somebody, they’re just not there,” Teal said. “They’re not going to come to work for you. So we really need to go back and look at this.”

Robert Davis, Loxley utilities director, said Evergreen has conducted similar studies for the cities of Foley and Fairhope, Baldwin County and Riviera Utilities.

“They’ve already got the data, so they’re not reinventing the wheel and having to request a bunch of data for us,” Davis said.

Teal said that as Loxley grows, the town will need to find more employees and to retain workers who are now with the municipality. He said the town should also reward long-time workers for their loyalty to Loxley.

“We owe it to our employees,” Teal said. “We have some very loyal employees who have been with us for a long time and I really think our employees are the backbone of this town. We really need to do them fair and look at the benefits and see what other municipalities are doing.”

The goals of the study include revising current pay scales and creating new scales, classifying assignments by pay grade and making recommendations for recruiting new employees and retaining workers now with the town, according to the proposal.