We have a short agenda.

We're gonna have our labor market analysis.

I know there was some questions we had for HR last week, and they weren't they weren't here.

So if you have any more further questions, they're in the room that can assist.

And then we're gonna have the our financial people go over our 27th preliminary general fund budget.

And it's just to give a status of where the city stands, and then we'll pass it on to you, and then we'll set up a date for our next meeting.

With that, I'll pass it on to Monica.

Thank you.

Um good morning.

I apologize for missing last uh the last meeting, but I'm here to answer some of the questions that arose in that meeting.

So we'll get um my goodness, excuse me.

Okay, we'll start off with um acknowledging that there are regional differences in the labor market.

So this uh slide shows uh El Paso's overall cost of living.

Um it shows that it is the lowest of the market cities listed, and the market cities that are listed are the ones that we're using for our compensation benchmarking.

Um so El Paso when you look at housing costs, consumer expenses, regional labor costs, they're generally more affordable in El Paso compared to the larger metroplex cities that you see listed.

And the data is sorted by median household income, um, highlight that the data that is being represented here is of 2024.

Um geographic adjustments help create a more equitable apples to apples comparison.

Um then the objective is to understand the competitive positioning while recognizing El Paso's local economic conditions.

So how do we get to the to the data and adjusting the data?

So we use the Economic Research Institute and the ERI platform, and we use the data there to calculate our average local index for each city listed.

And so you see here on this screen, I'll take for example Austin, Texas, is the first one listed.

Um the average local index for Austin is 1.21%, or 1.210.

What that means is that the compensation or the compensation is 21% higher in Austin than it is here in El Paso.

And so if you go down the list of that local index, you can see that we're benchmarking with El Paso.

El Paso's one, so El Paso is 100%.

We're basically um comparing the costs to El Paso.

So the geographic adjustment allows compensation data from different cities to be evaluated on a more equal basis.

The process accounts for differences in cost of labor, cost of living, and purchasing power.

Um rather than comparing Phoenix or Austin salaries to El Paso salaries, the data is adjusted to reflect what those salaries would be would equate to within the intent to better understand the market competitiveness.

So here's an example of the market data collected.

You've seen this, probably ad nauseum.

Uh, but this is our the current fiscal year 2026 data, and you see here El Paso uh the geographic factor or the index if you want to refer to it that way is one.

So we're we're comparing all the other cities to El Paso, and what I want to say here is that adjusting the salaries is a more balanced and defensible compensation strategy that aligns with both the fiscal stewardship and labor market competitiveness, which is what we want to achieve.

There was another question that was asked in the last meeting with where else is ERI used across the city, and so currently, as of right now, it is being used for the police union data or information, but we don't use it for non-uniformed positions, and I'm gonna try to explain the differences.

Uniformed positions often or they do operate traditionally on a step plan, and where the employees progress through the plan, the compensation plan, through determined salary steps.

So you the step plan represents actual salaries of the uh uniform uh personnel, and um, so in essence, the progression of the steps or the market analysis of the steps focuses on actual salaries, what these ranks are being paid out by these other cities, actual salaries in non-uniformed positions, we typically or we do evaluate um in a different way.

We look at internal alignment, we look at grade placement, where that position slots in what grade, and we also look at compression because that's very important here at the city of El Paso.

We don't want new hires earning more than established or seasoned employees.

So when we look at, and I'll flip over, no, that's not what I want.

So when we do a market analysis on non-uniform positions, we traditionally look at the minimum of the grade.

We don't look at salaries, we look at the minimum of that position's grade, and then we also is important to know we lag market, we don't match market, we lag it, and it's to um reflect the lower cost of living of El Paso and our market conditions.

So when we do the analysis, we look at the minimum of the grade, and um then we slot that position into our current established um pay scale, which is not a step plan.

It's it's a more of a grade plan, and lastly, I do want to highlight that um that there are positions where we do match market, and that's because the supply and demand pressures influence our compensation strategy, obviously.

So if we have fewer qualified candidates available, and multiple employers are looking for that candidate, then the market compensation increases so that we're able to remain competitive and fill our positions.

So if that makes sense, hopefully I've explained certain things.

I see, Chief, you're gonna jump in.

If I can add like on that specific uh example right there, she was talking about veterinarians.

We've been we've been looking for veterinarians for years, and the so is the entire country.

And so we can't be competitive enough with the private sector.

And you've got these big national chains that that have veterans in their stores now, and they're they're giving them sign-on bonuses, they're paying their and so it's that thing is we're always constantly looking on how do we, you know, we have some of those we have to push up.

There's no compression issue because we don't have multiple veterinarians, you know, on staff, but that's some of the examples.

I'd say at this point in time, if you have any questions before we move on to the financial side with HR, feel free to ask your questions now.

Good morning, Jesse Eschline, Vice President.

Can you go back to the first slide for me?

Oh, I'm using the right.

Yeah, Skyway.

Uh one more, I'm sorry.

The one that shows that one perfect.

Uh first, uh, if you guys find a house for 180,000, uh, today's market, please let me know.

That's a median.