Jefferson City Council to hold special meeting Monday to discuss raising city employee pay
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Jefferson City Council will hold a special meeting Monday night to discuss a 5 percent raise for all city employees.
The council tabled the vote at its meeting last week. The meeting is open to the public Monday, and starts at 5:30 pm at the Jefferson City Municipal Building.
Council tabled the vote on the raise at the city council meeting on Tuesday. Councilwoman Erin Wiseman, who sponsored the bill, was not able to attend the meeting. Council felt like it was best to hear comment from Wiseman before taking a vote. Wiseman is expected to attend the meeting on Monday.
The group will discuss whether they want to offer the current bill on the table, the 5 percent raise, or they could choose a different amount to raise pay by.
Jefferson City mayor Carrie Tergin says now is an important time to give employees the raise.
"Our employees are our most important asset and we provide so many services to the community and to the citizens. We want to do whatever we can to remain competitive when it comes to hiring and retention," Tergin said.
The raise would affect more than 300 city employees, and it comes at a time when inflation is up 8 percent.
The push for the raise comes after the state of Missouri, the city of Columbia and Cole County approved similar raises for their employees to address inflation.
At the meeting on Tuesday, council was split on whether or not to vote on the raise.
Some members were in support of the raise but felt it was important to wait for Wiseman to be in attendance. Other council members wanted to act immediately saying it's owed to their employees.
"We have one realistic whack at this to address something thats been an issue for a number of years and thats compression," Scott Spencer, Third Ward councilman said at Tuesday's meeting.
"We owe our hard-working city staff an immediate response to this," Laura Ward, Second Ward councilwoman said at Tuesday's meeting.
"Giving us a little bit of time to sort out the three options might be our best course of action," Ron Fitzwater, Fourth Ward councilman said.
