FAYETTEVILLE -- Aldermen approved raises for nearly 700 city employees Tuesday.
Mayor Lioneld Jordan's compensation plan averages out to a 3.75 percent pay increase for most employees.
Fayetteville City Council
Also on Tuesday, the City Council approved:
• Five contracts totaling $10.6 million for the first phase of a regional park.
• Rezoned 21.6 acres north of the Fayetteville Boys & Girls Club.
• Rezoned 4.8 acres at 3010 W. Old Farmington Road.
• Rezoned 2.5 acres northwest of Maine Street and Cross Avenue.
• Authorized applying for a grant to help build three sections of boardwalk on the Lake Fayetteville nature trail.
• Approved buying 14 vehicles for $702,000.
Source: Staff report
Non-uniformed workers' increases will depend on performance reviews.
Police officers are set to receive an automatic "step" increase. Each step is equivalent to a 3.75 percent pay bump on average.
Fayetteville firefighters are eligible for a two-step increase in 2015, because they didn't receive a step increase in 2013.
Police and fire personnel must have worked for the city for at least a year to earn raises. Non-uniformed employees must have been on board for at least six months.
The raises will first be reflected on employees' April 3 paychecks.
The compensation plan is estimated to cost about $1.4 million for the remainder of the year and $1.8 million in future years. It will be paid for with surplus money in the city's 2014 budget -- money that otherwise would have gone into general fund reserve.
"I think this plan is affordable going forward," Paul Becker, Fayetteville finance director, told aldermen Tuesday.
According to Kevin Springer, the city's budget director, the average pay rate for 668 city employees is $20.68 per hour, or roughly $43,000 annually for a 40-hour-a-week employee.
That figure does not include elected officials, workers who scored below 3.0 on their performance reviews or new employees -- all of whom are ineligible for raises under Jordan's compensation plan.
The average hourly wage for more than 208,000 workers in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers Metropolitan Statistical Area was $19.98 per hour, or $41,560 annually, in 2013, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The metropolitan statistical area includes Washington, Benton and Madison counties in Arkansas and McDonald County in Missouri.
A "living wage calculator" by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates a two-adult, two-child household had to earn at least $17.93 per hour in 2013 to be able to afford food, child care, medical, housing, transportation and other expenses. The "living wage" for a single wage earner in a one-person household was $8.22 per hour, according to MIT's calculator.
Also on Tuesday, the mayor accepted a $130,000 check from the Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association.
The association in August committed to raising the money to help defray the city's $1.1 million cost of buying 11 acres northeast of Gulley Park.
According to Bob Caulk, association treasurer, 75 donors contributed to the fundraising effort. The Walton Family Foundation provided a matching grant. The nonprofit Cow Paddy Foundation and the group Friends of Gulley Park were also involved.
To further defray the cost of the purchase from Mary Lou Dunn, City Council members authorized the sale of 1.2 acres along Old Wire Road where Dunn and her daughter, Sherry, used to live.
Wade Colwell, a longtime Fayetteville resident who repeatedly lobbied for an expansion to Gulley Park, said at Tuesday's City Council meeting, "We've got a lot more precious areas around here to preserve and protect, and it only makes Fayetteville a better place to be every time we do that."
NW News on 03/04/2015