The RFP's title says classification and compensation; its detailed task list is classification through and through. Rather than guess, we asked the Town through the Q&A process, and we priced the proposal so either answer is already covered: the classification study is the base scope, and a market compensation module is a separately priced option the Town can elect without re-procuring.
Objective G asks for a classification system that adapts to future operational needs. That means specifications HR can maintain in-house, families and levels with written distinctions, career pathways employees can see per Objective C, and an implementation plan that does not depend on the consultant sticking around. The Final Report is built as an operating manual rather than a shelf document.
If the Town elects the market module, our comparator method uses the labor market Los Gatos actually competes in: Santa Clara and neighboring county towns and small cities such as Campbell, Saratoga, Los Altos, Cupertino, Morgan Hill, Menlo Park, and San Carlos, drawn from agency-published salary schedules with the match basis for every comparable-class decision documented, so HR can defend any single number a year later without us in the room.
Salary tells you who wins offers; total compensation tells you who keeps people. Where the module is elected we collect employer retirement contributions (including CalPERS classic versus PEPRA distinctions), health contributions, leave value, and special pays, and we show where the two measures disagree, because the disagreements are exactly where negotiation arguments start.
Every specification we touch carries an exempt/non-exempt designation with the analysis behind it (Objective F), ADA-conformant essential-function and physical-requirement language, and bargaining-unit alignment. Compliance is built into the drafting standard rather than delivered as a separate document.
A proposer who assumes the market survey is in scope prices high and may lose on cost for work the Town never asked for. A proposer who assumes it is out prices low and change-orders later. We did neither. The base fee covers every task lettered in the Scope of Work, the market module is priced and described separately, and the Town chooses. That is what commitment to the project budget looks like in practice.