Henning City Council to look into wage study
News | Published on December 2, 2025 at 12:21pm EST | Author: henningmaster
0Employees recently formed a new union
By Chad Koenen
Publisher
The City of Henning discussed potentially updating a wage study that could be in place by early 2026.
During a special city council meeting last Tuesday night, in which several things were taken off the agenda due to inclement weather, the city council discussed the potential need for a new wage study.
The last time the city completed a wage study was in 2022, but it was reportedly never fully implemented. Rather than following a wage grid as part of a wage study, in each the past two years the city council has granted a $1 per hour raise for each employee as part of a COLA increase. The council has also granted another $1 per hour raise in each of the past two years on an employees hiring anniversary. Those increases by the city council over the past two years has reportedly led to some employees making more than the last wage study found they should be making for similar work.
The city council said it would like to proceed with a new wage study and will look at ways to utilize past information and questionnaires to help cut down on the cost of completing a new wage study.
The cost for having completing a wage study, market study, pay grade and new job descriptions would be $9,000, which could be split up over the course of three years. The wage study would be completed by David Drown Associates.
Several council members and city staff said the previous wage study was never formally presented to the city council back in 2022 when the original wage study was completed, which led to some of the confusion in the past.
Henning Mayor Jesse Hermanson said the city employees also recently formed a union and the new wage study would go a long ways to helping the city settle with the new union for compensation in the future as well.
In addition to the wage study, the city council also denied moving forward with a solar grant through Solar Public Buildings. The solar panels could be located at the water and sewer plant and could cut down on the electricity at the water plant by an estimated $5,000 per year. The city would be on the hook for 30 percent of the overall project, of which the city’s cost would be approximately $30,000. The remaining cost of the project would be covered by a grant.
A number of communities in the region have also completed solar panel projects through West Central Initiative to cut down on the overall electricity used on city buildings, but due to questions surrounding the program through Solar Public Buildings the council did not move forward with that grant at this time.