The City of Plymouth’s 2017 salary ordinance failed to pass the Common Council on second reading Monday.
Among those voting against the measure was Duane Culp. He felt that Clerk-Treasurer Jeanine Xaver did not give enough explanation for some changes made to the ordinance. “You gave us three different [options]: two-percent, three-percent, and $1,000,” he said. “When I spoke before, this one reflects everybody receiving $1,000 across the board, which is what I’m voting on, and now that I’m reading it, I’m noticing that there’s more than $1,000 for some employees. I’m not saying that they don’t deserve it. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that when I’m voting on [Ordinance] 2016-2102R, I was under the understanding that there was $1,000.”
Although the title of the ordinance still seemed to imply a $1,000 across-the-board raise, Xaver said some adjustments were made to the actual salaries in the ordinance, at the request of Mayor Mark Senter. “Full-time employees are getting $1,000,” Xaver said. “Part-time are $500. I made a correction to include language changing the fire shift that was incorporated into last year’s salary ordinance.”
Some of the other proposed changes were an increased raise for Airport Manager Dave Lattimer and the change of the recreation and pool director job to an hourly position. Also set to get larger raises were three members of the clerk-treasurer’s staff.
Xaver said the raises were necessary, in order to attract qualified workers, “Well, there were three in the last year that did not take the position, even the deputy’s position, because it was like a seven-dollar-an-hour pay cut from what they were making. Two of my current employees took at least a three-dollar-an-hour pay cut to come to work for me. They are well-qualified. This is probably the best set of staff I’ve had.”
While Jeff Houin voted in favor of the ordinance, he expressed concern with the new promotion of the city coordinator position. It includes a range of tasks, from managing the city’s social media platforms to planning community events.
Although Houin felt the creation of the position was long overdue, he was afraid that making it an hourly position could potentially lead to a large number of overtime payments for the city. “At some point, we might want to consider making it a salary exempt position, so that that’s not a concern,” he said. “But that would also mean raising the salary another probably about $7,200 over what it is right now to meet that threshold. So the mayor is not inclined to make that recommendation. I’m not making that recommendation specifically. I just want people to be aware that we need to be vigilant about the hours that are worked in that position.”
Plymouth’s 2017 salary ordinance was narrowly defeated on second reading Monday by a vote of four-to-three. Gary Cook, Duane Culp, Don Ecker Jr., and Shiloh Fonseca opposed, while Mike Delp, Shawn Grobe, and Jeff Houin voted in favor.
