Council Makes No Progress on Budget

— An hour of discussion left the City Council still spinning wheels over salary increases.

The council, meeting as the Finance Committee on Tuesday, never reached a vote while discussing limits on some raises and increasing the salary of other positions.

Alderman Bobby Stout, chairman of the committee, adjourned the meeting after stating the meeting was at an impasse. He announced another budget hearing would be held Nov. 29, after a previously called 5:30 p.m. joint meeting of the Police and Fire Committee and the Street and Capital Improvement Committee.

“I thought this would give everyone more time to look at the budget numbers and see what they could come up with,” Stout said. “We were missing three members from the council also.”

Mayor Doug Sprouse used a study by the Johanson Group to propose pay scales for full-time employees in 2013. The study didn’t include elected officials or part-time employees.

Policemen and firefighters would received a 6 percent raise. Other employees would receive raises according to how far the Johanson study showed they were below the regional average for their positions. Some employees, who were at the top of their pay range, would receive bonuses instead of raises, according to the proposed budget.

Not having the input of the missing members — Kathy Jaycox, Mike Overton and Jeff Watson — could cause problems when the budget goes up for a vote, said Alderman Eric Ford.

“We would probably have the same discussion again at the council meeting,” Ford said.

Several aldermen said they had a problem with giving higher percentage raises to department heads and supervisors. A percentage raise is a lot more money to a higher paid employee, such as department heads, that a lower paid one, said Alderman Brad Bruns.

“It’s going to cause a morale problem,” said Alderman Jim Reed.

Reed proposed capping the raises at 6 percent with the minimum raise at 4 percent.

“This would give everyone a good raise and would save money on the budget,” Reed said.

That raise schedule would save $49,000, Reed said. That schedule would reduce the raises of department heads, he said.

The proposal died without a second.

Bruns also discussed giving a higher raise to the city attorney, an elected position. The raise would have begun in the new year, when Jeff Harper, current city attorney, will be the district judge.

Bringing that position to the average of the other large cities in the area would make the city attorney higher paid than the mayor. Sprouse asked for the council to wait on raise for elected officials.

“I would not feel good about bringing my salary up to an average that our folks are not going to reach,” Sprouse said.

The proposal was dropped.

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