Some city employees are voicing concerns about qualifications for raise

Some city workers want the City Council to make a change to the Fiscal Year 2020 budget.

Eric Scott is a union representative from LiUNA for Local Union 773. He spoke at Monday’s council meeting, representing those who work for public works. Some city employees are unhappy with how they qualify for mid-point pay in their position.

“If it starts off at $15 that’s the minimum. It might be that the mid-point range is $20. So if you work in that job for five years you know that at the end of your fifth year, you’re going to get a $5 raise,” Scott said.

Currently, employees qualify for mid-point pay if they are in their position for more than five years. It is based on title and not time with the city.

“The issue that we’re having is that we have folks who had their titles changed, or who, say, took a promotion, or moved to a different job title in the same department, or took a transfer. Something like that,” Scott said. “And so their job title has changed. They’ve been working in the city in some cases for 11 years, 12 years, 15 years, but they haven’t been in that same one job title for five years. And so as a result they missed out on that mid-point change.”

He cited the equipment operators in the street department as one group that missed out on the change after their titles changed.

Council member Mike Trapp said the city is in a tough position financially to make changes to the budget.

“That’s the crux is we have this structural funding problem of how we pay for core government services. And we have been cutting everything. We’ve defrayed raises because we thought it was a temporary situation,” Trapp said. “We brought a ballot to raise property tax, which is a nice stable form of revenue, in 2013 and that failed miserably. So we’ve not been able to build a political consensus to be able to raise our revenue.”

He also said raises to city employees are necessary.

“We have to do raises because we have a 10 percent vacancy rate. We have a morale issue. And our turnover rate has doubled,” he said.

Trapp said City Council and City Manager John Glascock have worked to give raises and find ways to make pay more fair.

“We’ve done a half percent increase for every year of service for people who have been here longer than five years because the problem with the move to the middle is, what about the person that’s been here 10 years?” Trapp said.

They tried to accommodate changes so people in their positions for five years would not be making close to the amount of someone who has been in the same position for 10 years.

“Because we’re not able to fund all aspects of the pay plan every year, it’s kind of catches by catch can, based on how much cuts we can stomach,” he said.

“We’ve reached a point where there isn’t a lot of fat in the system,” he said.

Trapp said spending more money on raises could be irresponsible, and the city has struck a balance for the lack of dealing with annual raises and is correcting that as best as it can.

“But now instead of saying, ‘OK, we’re going to have that surplus and we’re going to use that to patch holes and fund stuff and save for the future,’ instead we’re saying, ‘ We’re going to anticipate that and we’re going to spend extra this year,’ which is a one time. That’s how we’re able to do about a $3 million pay package for increases.

He said in these complicated pay issues, many people’s situations are unique and there will always be winners and losers.

Trapp said he thinks the council should try to address the issue in next year’s budget because it is so late in discussions.

“I’m hesitant to jump in with both feet at the last minute,” he said.

Trapp said he would like to have conversations with the city manager, organized and unorganized labor groups about the issue, and gather more research.

“I need to know how many people are involved, how much money is it going to cost, what are the unforeseen consequences, and there’s just no way we can do that this budget year,” Trapp said.

He fears making changes this late in the game would create unforeseen problems for other people or for the city’s financial standing.

Scott said LiUNA plans to continue advocating for a change if the City Council does not make an amendment.

“This is definitely something that our members care a lot about, and so we’re going to continue to advocate for it, both by talking to city council and by organizing with workers. Talking to the city management. Just doing whatever we can to advocate for a change to this policy,” he said.