On the first day of the fiscal year, the Columbus city council put itself squarely between a rock and a hard place and will soon have to choose one bad policy over another.
It’s kind of like wrecking your new car before you even get out of the dealer’s parking lot.
Gee, but wouldn’t it have been nice to start the new year off without the prospects of dissent? Tuesday’s city council agenda seemed to hold promise for that: There was nothing on the agenda that suggested a fight.
But beneath those still waters trouble was brewing. The first indication of that was a filled parking lot at the municipal complex before the 5 p.m. council meeting. Inside the courtroom where the city council holds its meeting, the room was three-quarters filled, mostly with uniformed Columbus firefighters, odd since there was no fire department matter on the agenda.
The reason for their presence was soon made known. As the meeting began and the council was set to approve or amend the agenda, Ward 3 councilman Charlie Box asked to address an issue related to the fire department.
After breezing through the rest of the agenda, Box made his argument.
For the past 10 months, two of the city’s firefighters have been “riding up” — a term used when an employee performs the duties of a higher rank without getting the pay that goes with those duties. Another two have been riding up for four months, Box said.
Grab your scorecard. That’s Bad Policy No. 1.
The council can fix Bad Policy No. 1 by accepting Box’s suggestion of immediately promoting the firefighters to the jobs they are “riding up” and paying them at the higher rate.
But that solution leads to Bad Policy No. 2 — spending money for those pay raises that won’t be in the budget until January.
In most, if not all, workplaces situations arise when an employee may be asked to perform duties that would normally be asked of someone in a higher position. People get sick, go on vacation, are called away or find themselves in a situation that requires an “all hands on deck” response.
But when, as is the case with these firefighters, people are asked to sacrifice the pay for which they are entitled over a prolonged period, that’s bad policy. As it stands today, two of these firefighters will have worked in this situation for more than a year, the other two more than half a year by the end of the calendar year.
To make matters worse, this was not an unexpected turn of events. In fact, it may be common practice. Mayor Robert Smith, objecting the Box’s call for an immediate promotion (with corresponding pay) for the firefighters, noted that three of the city’s public works employees were also “riding up.” Folks will also in April, three police officers forfeited pay raises upon their promotions. That move was made when the city faced a looming budget crisis. It was considered an emergency move and the officers were commended for sacrificing those raises, which they have since received.
In August, as the city was preparing its budget, Fire Chief Martin Andrews informed the city’s budget committee (of which Box is a member) that he would like to promote the four firefighters in question. All parties agreed to delay the promotions (and pay raises) until January as the city sought to build its cash balance.
That was the plan, flawed as it may have been. Remember, the city raised property taxes by 3.65 mills to fund a budget that included a projected $430,000 surplus. It’s a good idea to build in a surplus. Things happen that cannot always be anticipated.
But when you have a situation where you are asking employees to perform work they aren’t properly compensated for, it seems only fair that some of that surplus be diverted to those employees. If they were expected to work above their pay grade, the fair decision would have been to make those promotions right away and pay the firefighters according to their new positions. The council could have resolved this problem during the budget process.
It did not, and in failing to do so, the council likely faces Bad Policy No. 2 — deviating from the budget while the ink is still drying on the ledgers.
So the choice is between a bad policy that requires people to work for less than what they should and a bad policy of spending more than the budget prescribes less than a month into the new fiscal year.
At the end of the meeting, the council voted to table Box’s proposal for an immediate promotion and pay raise for the firefighters. The matter is expected to be resolved in a special call meeting — one bad way or another.
Oh, and Happy New Year.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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