For the second time in two months, Starkville aldermen will discuss setting a minimum $10-per-hour pay raise for city employees and an annual increase for the incoming administration.
The city’s e-packet shows an agenda item from Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn that ties together the two increases in one motion. How much it would raise elected officials’ pay is unknown and not present in the city documents.
Last month, aldermen chose to study the issue instead of proceeding with a similar plan offered by Ward 5 Alderman Scott Maynard, who chairs Starkville’s budget committee.
That plan would have increased the mayor’s full-time salary from $71,500 to $75,000 annually, while increasing each of the seven board members’ part-time pay from $15,000 to $20,000. The board-elected vice mayor, who chairs meetings in the absence of the mayor, would have also received an additional 10 percent raise.
Tuesday’s discussions marks the third time this year the board has considered increasing elected officials’ salaries. A failed attempt in March did not include a raise for the mayor’s position.
Starkville has almost 60 employees earning below $10 per hour, and 40 of those workers will remain below the threshold in the upcoming fiscal year once a previously approved 3 percent raise is implemented, documents presented by Maynard last month showed.
Maynard previously said incremental increases across the next two years for the lowest percentile of salaried employees could bring the entire workforce to a proper pay rate.
His plan was projected to cost the city almost $60,000 in 2016 and $21,000 in 2017. Salary compression issues – the problems created by increasing some employees’ pay rates without increasing others – would also have to be dealt with after a segmented raise.
Improving hourly rates for the city’s lowest-paid workers became a focal point for many aldermen this term as some employees earn as little as $9.16 per hour, documents state, but the current administration has a history of adjusting board salaries.
In 2013, aldermen moved up a pending pay raise proposal for themselves and the mayor by a year while also increasing property taxes by 1.98 mills.
That increase was approved by the prior board of aldermen. Before it was implemented, aldermen earned $12,000 annually.
Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver railed against June’s proposal, saying leaders should not tie employees’ pay to what could be their own earnings.
“It sounds to me like some deal was struck somewhere with somebody,” he said last month. “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. 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.”
Maynard pulled his proposal after seeing “the votes (were) in” on the issue.
“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,” he said after the meeting.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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