The city council approved a Fiscal Year 2025 budget Thursday that includes no raises for elected officials.
It also includes no money for a city planner, public information officer or a dedicated Action Center coordinator.
Vice Mayor and Ward 2 Councilman Joseph Mickens asked Aug. 20 for nearly $89,000 in raises and benefits for elected officials to be added to the budget, Chief Financial Officer Jim Brigham told The Dispatch on Wednesday. That would have raised each council member’s salary to $30,000 and the mayor’s to $110,000.
Mickens denied to The Dispatch that he requested those increases.
By Thursday’s work session, the budget sported only 3% raises for the mayor and council, which would have only cost the city roughly $9,200 next fiscal year. Following a motion from Ward 6 Councilwoman Jacqueline DiCicco, the council removed even those raises on a 5-0 vote.
Mickens did not attend Thursday’s work session.
Gaskin, speaking to The Dispatch after the meeting, said he thinks removing all raises for elected officials next year, even the 3% raise, was “absolutely” the right decision.
The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
Salary compression, new positions
During budget discussions throughout the summer, the council had already approved a $15 minimum hourly wage for city employees who work 40 hours a week, as well as 6% raises for hourly police and firefighters (who work more than 40 hours a week) and 3% raises for everyone else.
On Thursday, the council added another $60,000 to the budget to address salary compression the $15 minimum wage created, dedicating $41,017.60 of that to raises for more than a dozen employees in various departments. The remainder will go toward other targeted raises that will be considered for employees with at least 10 years of service time.
“The ones who have been here a while will be adjusted also,” Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones said during the work session. “We didn’t have time to figure it all out right now, so we gave … a cushion to make those adjustments.”
While the council approved creating a part-time building inspector for FY 2025, Jones moved to wait on the planner, PIO and Action Center coordinator “until we figure out what we just spent” on employee raises.
Just those three positions would add more than $204,000 in salaries and benefits to the budget.
Ward 4 Councilman Pierre Beard offered a substitute motion to create the PIO and Action Center positions, but it died without a second.
Ethel Stewart, councilwoman for Ward 1, said the council would consider amending the budget to add those positions, “once we see what the salary raises for compression come to.” Brigham noted that because of next year’s election, state law prohibits budget amendments after July 1, 2025, when the new council takes office.
Columbus now operates with George Irby as interim city planner, and the mayor’s executive administrative assistant, Angela Jones, running the Action Center — which fields citizen-reported issues in the city. The city contracted with Joe Dillon for PIO duties for eight years before he resigned in January. The job hasn’t been filled since.
“The budget process is always very difficult. You have to give and take,” Gaskin said. “I still believe the positions that I suggested are needed. They are overdue. Hopefully, once we can get the adjusted numbers for the budget that we passed, we can revisit those.”
When all the giving and taking is tallied, Brigham said he expected the city’s more than $28 million budget to include a projected surplus of between $400,000 and $500,000.
“I’ll have the final number by Tuesday’s (regular) council meeting,” he told The Dispatch.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 39 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 39 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
