The Town of Fountain Hills has budgeted $3.6 million in salaries for the 2018/19 fiscal year for its 56 FTE employees.

This reflects a 2.5 percent increase with the new year in July and a second 2.5 percent increase in January. Town Manager Grady Miller said they chose to go with two rounds of wage increases in the coming fiscal year and plan no increases for the 2019/20 fiscal year.

“We have been working for a long time to get our salary ranges competitive with other municipalities in the Valley,” Miller said. “We are comparable to others, but are still below most other communities.”

All department heads for the town will begin the year earning $100,000, according to Miller.

The salaries not only reflect the competition in the market but benefit programs are also somewhat different, Miller added.

“We are not in the state retirement system,” he said. “We use a traditional 401K with modified contribution.”

Employees and the town do matching contributions to the program.

“We also don’t contribute to Social Security,” Miller said. “We have had a hard time of late trying to recruit.

“We don’t get [applicants who are] mid-level professionals. We are seeing young, entry level applicants or semi-retired.

“We are a bit more competitive now than we have been. We never bring someone in at the top end of the salary range, usually very near the minimum.”

A complete schedule of the salary ranges for all approved positions is available for review in the budget document posted to the town website, fh.az.gov.