Hearing draws workers thankful for pay raises
Published 5:00 am Wednesday, August 29, 2007
A small crowd of city workers gathered at the government complexTuesday night for the annual public hearing on the budget.
The public hearing was held for citizens to ask Mayor BobMassengill and Board of Aldermen any questions they might have thusfar in the budget. City officials are contemplating a $10.3 millionbudget for the new fiscal year that starts Oct. 1
Questions Tuesday night revolved around raises, equipment andrepaving of streets.
The raise issue was one which was happily pondered by the entiregroup, with questions aimed at the amount of the raise anddependent coverage on the city insurance plan.
Board members laid out the raises they are considering, with thedollar per hour scale and telling the group the starting pay wouldbe $8 an hour, with certified drivers making $9 an hour andcertified operators making $9.50 an hour.
While aldermen were able to defray misconceptions that cityemployees would be paying for their insurance, they did explainthat the cost for dependent coverage is being gradually shifted tothe employee.
Alderman at large Les Bumgarner explained to the group thatother cities, while offering dependent coverage, do not actuallyhelp in the payment of it.
“Most cities are not handling any of the dependent coveragecosts,” he said. “And the policy we’re on now just keeps gettingmore and more expensive.”
Brandon is currently the only city that Brookhaven officials areaware of that pays any part of the dependent coverage, and itcovers half of the costs.
“It’s unfair for us to hit you with several hundred dollars moreper month,” Massengill told the group. “So we plan to take it alittle at a time.”
Board members also explained that a dollar an hour raise isactually a larger raise than the earlier proposed 5 or 6 percent.Several members of the audience said the upcoming raise is the bestraise they’ve gotten in many years of working for the city.
“I’ve been around for several mayors and this is the best raiseI’ve seen,” one audience member said. “We appreciate all you guyshave done for us.”
Members of the board said they were happy to help.
“This is what we saw we could do this year,” said Ward FourAlderwoman Shirley Estes. “This seemed reasonable.”
Ward Two Alderman Terry Bates told city workers to keep up thegood work.
“This is the best raise you’ve gotten since I got here,” hesaid. “Thank God we’re working on it, because I know you need it.It’s a start, and I think it’s going to be a good year.”
Another question from the audience was about trucks and otherequipment, and whether the city would be replacing some of theolder vehicles in the street department.
“We may replace it, we may not.” Massengill said. “We’ve beentrying to systematically replace equipment some every year, andhopefully that will continue through the forseeable future.”
Massengill assured the group that the board was sympathetic tothe need for updated equipment. He said $300,000 to $350,000 peryear is set aside for new vehicular equipment.
One of the street department workers pointed to places in thenew annexation area that are in need of repaving, saying thatpeople will often ask street department workers when they will berepaving them.
Massengill said questions about repaving should be referred tothe board. Like the equipment, though, he reminded the group that arepaving project the size the city might actually need would becost-prohibitive.
“It’s all a matter of dollars and cents,” he said. “We’vebudgeted a certain amount every year for repaving. We’ll do thebest we can, but we can’t repave 13 square miles immediately.”