Addie McCluskey
Elmore Autauga News
Prattville City Council approved a resolution on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026, during their regular meeting, authorizing the mayor to enter into an agreement with Condrey and Associates, Inc. for a classification and compensation study.
The resolution for a compensation study was brought forward following concern over the pay of city personnel and lingering questions about the 2018 study — including whether a finalized report had ever been fully distributed.
“In my discussions with the mayor, the human resources director, and the finance director, there has been a lot of questions and requests made of a 2018 pay study,” said Council President Michael Whaley. “I think there were only two members of this council that were on the council at that time, so we’re looking at and requesting 8-year-old data.”
Whaley said he sought updated pricing for a comprehensive study to provide current data and ensure the entire council would receive a finalized report this time.
“My thoughts in this was trying to put some of the issues that we have absolutely no control over behind us and to look towards the future and get a classification and compensation study that we would have the full final report to,” said Whaley. “We could post that online and then hopefully have that prior to this next budget year.”
District 2 Councilor Marcus Jackson raised concerns about how the final report would be distributed, referencing frustrations from the previous study.
“The issue previously was that we never had a chance to see the actual final draft that Condrey sent to the city,” said Jackson. “So, will you be included in that email or correspondence once they submit their final draft?”
Whaley said he believed the contract required the final report to be sent to council members and deferred to Human Resources Director Lisa Thrash for clarification.
“Just to add a little bit of history, we started the study in 2018, but it was not implemented until 2019,” said Thrash. “When we got the information, the mayor, the council president, who at the time was Council President Strickland, and I had a call with Condrey, and they got the report.”
She said council members at the time reviewed the data in her office in small groups but were not provided with copies of the full report as it contained employee names and pay rates. Jackson, however, said that the explanation did not resolve his concerns.
“We saw some significant pay raises in certain areas, and the people out here on the streets that are doing the manual labor may have gotten 10 to 15 cent raises, whereas others may have gotten thousands of dollars in raises,” said Jackson. “One of the things we wanted to see was the actual draft [report] from Condrey.”
Thrash responded that she did not object to council members receiving information but believed she could not legally release the full document due to personal data protection.
“I don’t mind if you get that information,” said Thrash. “I will say one thing: nobody had a 10 or 15 cent raise. That is not factual.”
She added that, to her knowledge, raises were no less than four to five thousand dollars annually, with some employees receiving more based on knowledge, education, and physical abilities.
Council President Pro Tempore John Chambers suggested the 2018 discussion move offline so the council could focus on the new proposal, a recommendation District 1 Councilor Wade Newman supported.
“We have been living in the shadow of this pay study issue, and what we do a lot of times in the military and the corporate world is lessons learned,” said Newman. “I want us to get all the information we are supposed to have…I do not want to repeat performance of this 2018 confusion.”
Following Newman’s comments, the council unanimously voted to approve the resolution for a new classification and compensation study at a cost not to exceed $57,500.
For more information about Tuesday’s council meeting, a full recording is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch.
