The 2024 study surveyed fifteen peer agencies and four of them, including Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax, never returned data. Our method starts from what jurisdictions already publish, which no one can decline to return, and reserves the custom survey for what publication cannot answer: pay practices, incentives, and structure mechanics.
Bolton's 2024 custom survey, identified jointly with the Town, drew usable data from eleven agencies: Arlington County, Loudoun County, Prince William County, Falls Church, Herndon, Leesburg, Manassas Park, and the Maryland municipalities of College Park, Gaithersburg, Hyattsville, and Rockville. Four invitees returned nothing: Alexandria, City of Fairfax, City of Manassas, and Fairfax County. We would start from this Town-validated field, add the non-responders through their published pay plans (all four publish), and confirm the final two lists with HR at kickoff, as RFP §4.5.1 provides.
Fairfax County publishes every compensation plan as a PDF, FY2026 and FY2027 both. Falls Church posts its class plans, including a stepped police plan. Leesburg's pay grades and salary ranges are Council-adopted and posted. Herndon, City of Fairfax, and Manassas publish adopted budgets with compensation actions. Vienna's own two pay plans are published. For hard-to-fill technical roles, RFP §4.3.3 adds relevant private-sector markets, which we reach through published regional survey sources rather than one-off employer calls.
| Jurisdiction | What it publishes | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Town of Vienna | Civilian pay plan + sworn step scale, updated each fiscal year | viennava.gov, Classification and Compensation |
| Fairfax County | All compensation plans (general, police, sheriff, management), FY2026 and FY2027 | fairfaxcounty.gov/hr |
| City of Falls Church | Classification plans incl. stepped police plan; FY2026 budget added 5% compensation | fallschurchva.gov, Classification Plans |
| Town of Leesburg | Council-adopted pay and classification plan; pay grades and salary ranges | leesburgva.gov, Human Resources |
| Town of Herndon | Adopted budget + transparency tool; pay plan via HR | herndon-va.gov |
| City of Fairfax | Adopted budget with compensation detail | fairfaxva.gov, Finance/Budget |
| City of Manassas | Adopted budget (FY2026: 3% merit + COLA); FY2027 posted | manassasva.gov, Budget Division |
| Arlington / Loudoun / PWC / Alexandria | Published budgets, pay schedules, and public-safety pay actions | county and city sites |
Custom surveys are the long pole in any comp study: invitations, reminders, partial returns, and the four-of-fifteen silence the 2024 study experienced. Building the baseline from published plans first means market analysis starts the week of kickoff rather than the week the last survey straggles in, and the custom survey that follows is shorter, sharper, and aimed only at what publication cannot answer. On an award-to-delivery window of roughly ten weeks, that sequencing is not a preference. It is the schedule.