Ken Ruth to Molly: AON study - percent or percentile?

From Molly Janczyk; Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2006 Subject: Re: Fw: AON Compensation Study:

I am sure you are correct! I will pass to Dennis and Damon

My understanding is:

STRS is above average for public sector and at the 25 percentile for public sector. STRS feels they lose staff to private sector bec/ they pay better. They feels some/many of the staff does work comparable to public sector and so should be compensated above average for public and in the 62.5 percentile range for private sector paying jobs. They feel many support the investment staff and hiring new to replace lost employees costs time and money in training and errors due to learning curves.

I think that is their stand.

So, to me the question is: How many leave for private and would leave anyway due to better pay weighed against how many who would leave would actually stay if pay were higher but still not comparable to private sector as we cannot compete with private AND have talents and experience invaluable to STRS that would cost US by new staff errors, learning time and talent pool available.
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From: Ken Ruth; Subject: Re: Fw: AON Compensation Study: Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006

Hey Molly:

The summary of AON you sent (about 1/19) says that STRS staff "benefits (I assume this means salary and extras) program falls between prevalent and above average market practices". To me this says staff is already earning at or above average when compared to others doing the same job for different employers.

It goes on to recommend "adjustments of up to 62.5% level of private" etc.

My question is, shouldn't the "%" be "%ile"? It makes a huge difference. Because in %ile the 50th is average and if staff is now there or above any additional increase would just skew them even higher above the average. Another way of looking at it is that if it went to the 75%ile then their benefits would be in the top 1/4 of all such employees.

I do not understand the sentence of Mary Ellen's day three retreat notes which says,..."The AON study results have been published and indicate that compensation at STRS is low."

It just seems to me that if % is correct, the STRS benefits are very low and if it should be %ile that we are now above and the staff wants more.

I am confused. Can you clarify for me?

Ken Ruth
Shelby County