City councilmen will likely have to consider individual raises for two city employees when they meet again to discuss the city’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget.
The budget, which councilmen are working to finalize, includes $2,500 raises for Glenda Buckhalter, coordinator for the city’s Community Outreach Center and Police Chief Oscar Lewis’ administrative assistant Sheila Elder.
Buckhalter’s raise would increase her salary from its current $29,993, and Elder’s would increase hers from her current $29,370.
The raises are included in the proposed budget as councilmen have grappled in the past two budget meetings to determine if the city can afford an across-the-board 3-percent pay increase for employees. Such a raise, which does not include the police department because councilmen recently implemented a raise for officers, is projected to cost about $209,000.
Both spot raises, for Buckhalter and Elder, represent pay bumps of about 8 percent.
Buckhalter declined to comment on the matter. City Chief Administrative Officer David Armstrong also declined to comment, saying the matter will go before the council when it meets again to discuss the budget at 2:30 p.m. Thursday.
Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones said he’d prefer to see raises for all employees, rather than a few specific ones. He said he’d also like to hear the reasoning for any specific raises of more than 3 percent.
“I think they should be part of the 3 percent,” he said. “Everyone gets the same — 3 percent across the board and not singling out individuals and giving them raises while other people are waiting on raises too.”
During the summer, Jones criticized Buckhalter’s work with the Community Outreach Center, saying the “right person” could do a better job with fundraising.
Buckhalter, as head of the Community Outreach Center, leads the city’s efforts to fight homelessness.
Should Buckhalter’s raise come to a council decision, Jones said he would not base his vote on that criticism.
“I’m not saying they don’t deserve a raise,” he said. “I want to make that clear. … It would be just like when I voted against giving myself a raise. I would probably do the same thing. When I was on the school board, I voted against giving the central office a raise. Unless we’re going to be fair to everyone who’s out there on the front lines, I don’t think we should do it. I’m not singling anybody out. I’m looking at myself.”
Ward 6 Councilman Bill Gavin said the city has done spot raises before, especially for workers who have taken on extra duties. He said he’s not necessarily opposed to raises, but indicated that he would like to see raises for all employees, if possible. However, he said he’s not certain the city can bear the cost.
“I’m not sure, from running the numbers, that we’ll be able to do 3 percent raises,” he said. “That, plus capital expenditures, could be a $400,000 to $500,000 deficit. Normally we’d take that out of our general fund, but we can’t keep doing that.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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