Both RFQs ask whether a step system based on time in position and total City service is feasible, and ask for incumbent placement, compression and equity effects, and the initial and five-year cost. This page demonstrates the method on illustrative data. The delivered analysis runs on the City's incumbent file.
For each step design the City wants to test: where every employee would land (by time in position, total City service and credited prior experience), how many land between steps or above the maximum, what it costs to place everyone in year one, and what step movement costs in each of the next four years. A design that looks affordable in year one can be expensive by year five; the model shows both.
Compression is pay that no longer separates people the plan says should be separated: a ten-year employee paid close to a new hire, a supervisor close to the people supervised, or (for police and fire) a promotion that pays less than the specialty pay it gives up. We measure each relationship on the incumbent file and list every case with the rule that flagged it.
Each flagged case in the delivered analysis names the rule that flagged it and the correction recommended, so when a director asks why one employee received an adjustment and another did not, HR answers from the record. The same rules go into the starting-pay and promotion guidelines, so next year's hires and promotions are placed the same way.