Starkville aldermen halted an attempt Tuesday to raise the next administration’s salaries once workers’ minimum hourly wages are set at a $10 minimum hourly rate, opting instead to study the issue and approach cost-of-living adjustments in the future.
Ward 5 Alderman Scott Maynard pulled a motion that would have made lockstep raises for the 2017 board and mayor, and an additional 10 percent raise for the city’s vice mayor after his peers, led by Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver, rallied against setting increases before tackling employee rates.
Specifically, the motion would have increased the mayor’s salary from $71,500 to $75,000, while individual aldermen’s salaries would have jumped from $15,000 to $20,000. The alderman selected by his peers to serve as vice mayor in the mayor’s absence, a mostly ceremonial role considering the mayor’s presence at a majority of board meetings, would have also received an additional $2,000 bonus.
Starkville currently employs 58 workers earning below $10 per hour, and 40 of those workers will still remain below the threshold in Fiscal Year 2016 once a previously approved 3 percent raise is implemented, documents presented at the table by Maynard show.
With incremental rate increases in the next two years for the lowest percentile of salaried employees, Maynard said Starkville can bring its entire workforce to proper pay scale. His tentative plan is projected to cost the city almost $60,000 in 2016 and $21,000 in 2017.
Improving hourly rates for the city’s lowest-paid workers — some employees make as little as $9.16 an hour, or roughly $19,000 annually — became a focal point for many leaders this term, but Carver and other board members said weaving employee raises with larger increases for part-time aldermen was not the way to go about solving income issues.
Carver cried foul with again bringing forward another pay raise proposal for elected officials since the board previously voted down a similar pay raise — the mayor’s position was absent from that increase — in March.
In 2013, aldermen moved up a then-pending pay raise for themselves and the mayor by a year while also increasing property taxes by 1.98 mills. That increase was previously approved by the prior board of aldermen. Before then, aldermen earned $12,000 annually.
“It sounds to me like some deal was struck somewhere with somebody. I voted against this every time, and I’ll vote against it again. I don’t treat this like a full-time job, but I think some do up here. I think some probably micromanage at times, and I think some go to every event they can,” Carver said. “Let’s separate the issues. If you want to address employee raises, let’s do that tonight. To say you’re not voting yourself a raise is probably not accurate in the fact that I think everybody … will be running again for re-election. With all due respect to you, Vice Mayor (Roy A. Perkins), you’ve done a good job when you’ve come out two times to start these meetings. Other than that, I don’t think (the position) deserves any different rate or any different salary than what I have.”
Mayor Parker Wiseman said pushing all city employees to the $10 per hour minimum is a vitally important issue to the city. Setting the minimum as a trigger for elected officials’ raises, however, is problematic as Tuesday’s proposal did not guarantee increases in the future, he said.
“I will not veto this measure as it stands because getting to $10 per hour is important for our workforce. If I’m pushed to vote on this issue, I will not vote in the affirmative, however,” he said.
Since Ward 2 Alderman Lisa Wynn left the table for the entirety of discussions, Wiseman would have been forced to break a potential tie.
“As of next year, an entry-level firefighter will make a lower hourly wage than an entry-level (employee) at Wal-Mart. It’s a significant issue,” he added. “I do not like the idea of tying it to elected official pay, but getting to $10 an hour is a standard I wouldn’t veto.”
At the table, Maynard said he thought the proposal would be a productive way to discuss employee raises, but he withdrew the motion after seeing “the votes are in” on the issue.
Later, the first-term alderman said he was attempting to make employee pay issues palatable to fellow board members.
“I wasn’t pushing for the board and mayor raises first. My first concern was to take care of city employees,” he said after the meeting. “The purpose (of the motion) was to really lock in this board and the next into making sure our employees are taken care of in an adequate fashion. We’ve taken one step in what’s going to be a three- or four-step process. We need to sit down and address these needs.”
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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