City Council Approves Salary Ordinances With 4% Employee Wages Increase
City Council Approves Salary Ordinances With 4% Employee Wages Increase
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
City Council Approves Salary Ordinances With 4% Employee Wages IncreaseCity of Warsaw employees will see their salaries increase by 4% in 2023 after the Common Council approved the 2023 salary ordinances on first reading Monday.
It’s the largest percent increase the city has given its employees for as long as Mayor Joe Thallemer and Councilman Jeff Grose could recall.
The second and final reading will be held at their Oct. 17 meeting.
Human Resource Director Denny Harlan presented the general salary ordinance first, followed by the police and fire salary ordinances.
On the general salary ordinance, he said, “We’ve landed with a 4% increase across the board for everybody’s wages. Our health insurance increased by 2%, that fee will be shared by the employees and the city. The employee will continue to pay 5% of the premiums.”
One position - an assistant to the superintendent - was added to the street department as they now have more than one administrative assistant at the department, Harlan said. “It is important that we separate those two roles,” he said, and it was important that Street Superintendent Dustin Dillon “has someone he can rely on to do the extra administrative work.”
It was also recommended by the city’s wage committee to increase the per-meeting wages for board meetings from $30 to $50.
New language was added so that co-op and intern students could be paid more than minimum wage, at the discretion of the department heads, but it must remain under the salary ordinance.
“I didn’t feel it’s fair to pay them minimum wage when they go to McDonald’s and make $14 an hour,” Harlan said. “If we want to start grooming that next generation, we’ve got to start there.”
Thallemer said, “I believe 4% is the largest increase that we’ve seen, at least since I’ve been mayor.”
He remembered there was a year where they gave 3.5%. He asked Grose if he could remember a year where they gave more, but Grose couldn’t.
“And we all know what inflation is doing and I wish we could do more, but our levy is not allowed to grow,” Thallemer said.
Clerk-Treasurer Lynne Christiansen said the city’s growth quotient is 4.2%.
“So that’s what we got. We’re going to have to tighten the belt to make this work, but I believe it’s important. Denny mentioned we’ve got great city employees and we need to show we value them,” Thallemer said.
On behalf of the wage committee, Councilwoman Diane Quance thanked everyone for their hard work earlier “that brought us to this point now where we don’t see those big changes at this time of year.”
Councilman Mike Klondaris thanked the wage committee and said he thought the city was doing employee salaries and wages the right way. “Our employees are our most important asset. Without them, we don’t function,” he said.
Council President Jack Wilhite made a motion to approve the general salary ordinance on first reading, Grose seconded it and it was approved 6-0 with Councilwoman Cindy Dobbins absent.
Moving on to the police salary ordinance, Harlan said it also included an increase of 4% to the base salary. The board member pay also was increased from $30 to $50 per meeting.
Chief Scott Whitaker requested to add a $500 per year stipend for a drone operator, Harlan said, because the drone operator has to be certified. He also requested a $500 annual stipend for a defensive tactics instructor.
Language was added to limit stipends to three per year per employee, and the language on co-op and intern students also was included in the ordinance.
Grose made a motion to approve the police salary ordinance, Councilman Josh Finch seconded it and it was approved on first reading 6-0.
Finally, on the fire salary ordinance, Harlan said it included a 4% increase to the base pay. Health insurance was an increase of 2%, shared between the city and the employee, as it was between the two previous ordinances.
“The big one with fire is we increased the EMS chief by 14.5%. We feel that his job description didn’t encompass all the things that he does for the city, so at the midyear increases last year he didn’t get any increases at all, but that position is critically important to our fire department and what they do. So in order to right that wrong a little bit, we asked that he could be bumped up to equal footing with the battalion chiefs,” Harlan said.
Chris Fancil is the EMS chief.
Harlan said they also added two different stipends. One is a $500 per year stipend for public safety education team member, and the other is a $25 per shift stipend to any firefighter who acts as an officer for that shift.
The board meeting pay will increase from $30 to $50 per meeting, and the co-op and intern language was added. Stipends are limited to three per year per employee.
Klondaris said the guys earn every penny and he made a motion to approve the salary ordinance, with Councilman Jerry Frush seconded. It was approved 6-0 on first reading.
