Piedmont City Council OKs pay raises for city employees

Nov. 04--PIEDMONT -- The City Council on Tuesday voted to enact step raises for city employees in the next fiscal year and also agreed for the city to continue to cover their cost of employees' health insurance, which is expected to increase.

"Thank God," someone in the 21-person audience uttered upon the decision. Applause filled the council chambers. Employees went without raises in 2014-15.

With the vote, the council approved its budget for the next fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. The 2016 budget projects about $480,000 to be left over in the General Fund after paying all bills and obligations -- that money is expected to cover employees' step raises and health insurance.

The step raises approved Tuesday mean employees will receive a 3 percent raise with each year they work for the city, given employees have positive worker evaluations.

That roughly $480,000 surplus largely depends on whether the city earns the $1.9 million it anticipates from its electric, water, gas and sewer funds; the city's utility service generated more than $2.1 million in the last fiscal year.

"I want to say one thing," Councilman Mark Harper said after the applause settled. "Our insurance for the city, how many in here know what it's gonna cost the city next year?"

Under the current health insurance plan -- where the city absorbs 95 percent for single plans and 66 percent for family plans -- the city anticipates spending $752,000 for its full-time employees, Harper pointed out. Harper compared the cost to the city's overall budget of roughly $10 million.

Still, Harper was among six of the seven council members who voted for the city to enact step raises and absorb health insurance. As one of the three council members who sat in on budget committee meetings throughout October, Harper had proposed a measure that would give city employees a flat bonus -- $50,000 split evenly among the city's 87 full-time employees -- rather than implement step raises. His proposal also included employees paying $5 more a week on health insurance.

That was one of the three options regarding pay raise and health insurance coverage that the council considered Tuesday.

"I was leaning towards that option," Harper said after the meeting, "but by the time it got to me, it was already passed; it already had four votes."

Two of those votes came from Mary Bramblett and Frank Cobb, both of whom had also represented the council with Harper at those budget committee meetings. Both had also previously voiced their preference for other options regarding pay raises and health insurance coverage discussed Tuesday. Bramblett had said she sided with Harper's proposal.

"We didn't have enough votes," she said after the meeting Tuesday. Terry Kiser made the motion approved Tuesday, and Ben Keller seconded.

Cobb had offered the third option the council considered: that employees receive no pay increase and that they absorb the cost of health insurance.

"If I had voted the way my heart felt, I would have voted no," Cobb said during the meeting. "The reason I didn't vote no was because I don't want people to be mad at me."

After the meeting, Cobb said "this budget should not have come this way." He said the pay raises should have been represented in the budget or not, without a vote from council members.

"This should not have been a popularity thing," he said. "Why should I vote against giving them a raise and then this guy votes for it and they praise him? It ain't about that."

Asked if he noticed council members feeling pressured, Mayor Bill Baker said, "I really didn't feel it. They could've voted on anything they wanted to vote on."

Brenda Spears was the only one of the city council's seven members who did not vote for the measure; she said she preferred the option Harper had proposed.

Spears pointed to what she felt were discrepancies in the budget and called it "unrealistic."

"I cannot support the current budget as it is presented tonight," she said.

In other business, the council:

-- Heard Cobb suggest the council consider at its next meeting a measure that would bring a 2 cent gas tax to the city to help fund paving streets. He said he wanted to see 14 or 15 miles of road paved. The project, he suspected, would cost $1.5 million and could be paid in bond money.

-- Voted to proceed in hiring a new police officer to help alleviate the overtime work Chief Freddie Norton said his staff was putting in.

-- Heard Baker say a driving range would be coming to the city's sports complex. Baker said the Parks and Recreation Department recently received equipment to start up the range, which he said would be an additional revenue-maker.

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