Arlington County workers are paid less than those in neighboring Alexandria and Fairfax County, and Arlington officials said they may need to raise salaries if the county is going to compete for the best workers. Arlington’s salary structure is “unhealthy” when compared to other jurisdictions in Northern Virginia, according to a compensation analysis conducted by county staff, and may hurt the county as it tries to hire new employees and retain those it already has. Seventy-seven percent of Arlington’s benchmark jobs, which the county uses to compare itself to other employers, have lower maximum salaries than the same positions in Alexandria and Fairfax County.
Though salaries for each position vary in each community, veteran employees of Alexandria and Fairfax can often earn as much as $7,000 more than someone in Arlington.
“I’m stuck with people in my office that when I hired them, I had to say, ‘You really have no future here in an income sense,'” Arlington Treasurer Frank O’Leary said. ” ‘I can’t pay you any more. You’re at the end of the line.’ ”
An increase in employee turnover has some Arlington officials speculating that workers may be moving to neighboring communities for work, though neither Fairfax nor Alexandria keep track of how many former Arlington workers they employ.
Arlington now hires new employees at higher salaries, sometimes close to the position’s maximum pay, so future pay raises are often limited, according to Human Resources Director Marcy Foster.
“You would think the economy could help us out here, but we don’t have many entry-level jobs,” Foster said. “We have to bring in people with experience.”
Alexandria and Fairfax County officials say they’ve struggled, too, because of the poor economy. In Fairfax County, employees haven’t received cost of living increases since 2004, with the exception of public safety workers, according to Supervisor Penny Gross. And Cheryl Orr, human resources director for Alexandria, said the city is in the middle of analyzing its own pay structure.
