Extra cash for Columbia city employees may violate state law

City Manager Mike Matthes is asking the city council to approve a one-time payment to all city employees after a decrease in revenue made it impossible to offer a permanent pay raise for the upcoming fiscal year.

Matthes announced the recommendation for a $1,000 payment to city employees during his budget address last Friday.

“I’m beginning to worry more and more about this great staff and how engaged they are,” Matthes said last week. “Even the best of us get a little tired.”

Brian Adkisson, a city spokesperson, said city employees have seen very minimal, if any, increases in pay since 2009.

Matthes said the money to pay all city employees would come to about $1.1 million and would come from savings from the fiscal year 2016 budget.

Michael Trapp, Ward 2 council member, said he would support the extra money to city employees.

“It’s definitely necessary,” he said. “What would be really good is a raise. We have really hard working staff who deserves that.”

Karl Skala, Ward 3 council member, said he would also vote in favor of the city employee payment only if it’s approved by the city’s legal department.

A section under state law prohibits “county or municipal authority to grant any extra compensation, fee or allowance to a public officer, agent, servant or contractor after service has been rendered or a contract has been entered into and performed in whole or in part.”

City officials said the money is not a bonus, but a “one-time, across the board increase in compensation.”

“We formed it in the form of a one-time payment, because we’re not able to have a recurring budget expense,” Trapp said. “It’s not a bonus, we can’t call it a bonus, it’s not taxed like a bonus, but it’s a one-time payment.”

On top of a decrease in revenue, Adkisson also cited an increase in pension and health care costs as reasons for the city not being able to provide a pay raise to its employees.

Adkisson said the last time city employees were given a similar one-time payment was in November 2003.

Margrace Buckler, the city’s director of human resources, said the proposal would give employees the one-time payment of $1,000 on Oct. 20.