Columbia electric line worker raises goes back for review

A plan to give electric line workers for the city of Columbia a 15 percent raise will head back to staff for more information.

Columbia city manager Mike Matthes offered to crunch the numbers further on raises for journeyman line workers in next year’s budget. The city’s finance department estimates that it will cost $456,301 to afford the 15 percent raises, but Matthes said it will require them to raise electric rates. Matthes said his staff would calculate by how much rates would need to go up to pay for it.

Former Columbia Water & Light staff members have raised alarms about low staffing on the electric side of the utility. Line workers are leaving the city, they said, for the same job in nearby utilities that pay better. This has put the electric utility behind on its staffing levels for line workers and foremen, leaving the potential for safety issues.

Jim Windsor, a former assistant director for the department, said the city could afford the raises without raising electric rates. Funds available in the department’s contingency fund, which is used to pay for emergency expenses, could be used for the salaries. Windsor said the department has spent little from the fund in recent years.

“Having our critical people leave is somewhat of an emergency,” Windsor said. “The money is there. We don’t need a rate increase to just deal with the 15 percent.”

The city council approved a possible bevy of raises for city employees on Tuesday for next year’s budget. After revising how much sales tax revenue to expect for next year and accepting thousands of dollars in cuts to other services, the council plans to give a 45-cent an hour raise to every worker, set the new minimum wage for full-time employees at $15 an hour and move all workers with more than five years of experience and no significant disciplinary issues to the midpoint of their salary range.

Line workers immediately make the midpoint for their salary range, but are promised no raises past then. A journeyman line worker makes $36 an hour, while a foreman makes $40 an hour.

Nearby utilities are offering more money for the same job, Windsor said. Independence Power and Light, for example, offers its journeymen line workers $43 an hour, with the potential to make $50 an hour over time. Windsor said Boone Electric Cooperative is another popular company that Columbia line workers go to, but their salaries are not public. Windsor said that he hopes the council comes up with a plan to fund the 15 percent raises, but that leaders need to find a sustainable way to keep those raises going.

“We have to develop a pay scale that attracts people from other, smaller utilities to us, rather than just keep having our people go to other utilities,” Windsor said.