The Plymouth Common Council has approved a 2017 salary ordinance, but not before some more changes were made to it. Back in August, the council rejected an earlier proposal, amid concerns that the ordinance no longer reflected the $1,000 across-the-board raise requested by council members.
A new salary ordinance was presented earlier this month. But during this week’s meeting, council member Gary Cook said it still didn’t resolve the issue. “The point of the proposed $1,000 across-the-board pay raise is just that. Everyone gets a pay raise of $1,000,” he said. “I just feel it’s a fairness issue. To put into the mix those additional categories and requests is just not fair to the other city employees.”
Specifically, Cook questioned the raises of nearly $2,500 for three employees in the Clerk-Treasurer’s Office, just over $3,500 for a Police Department multitask employee, and nearly $6,400 for the mayor’s assistant/promotion of the city coordinator. Instead, Cook said he would favor other measures, such as making the increases in phases. He also suggested the city look into hiring an additional staff member for the Clerk-Treasurer’s Office.
Council member Jeff Houin said he’d like the city to reevaluate all of its job duties and salaries. “I think that if we looked very hard, we’d find a lot of positions within the city that have evolved over time, that have different duties from what they were originally conceived as, and probably are not at the right salary point,” Houin said. “And so, I would like to see the city embark on a more comprehensive review of the positions within the entire city, not just individual departments.”
For now, though, Houin proposed a few changes to the salary ordinance, to bring it a bit closer to the $1,000 across-the-board raise originally requested. His amendment included the removal of the proposed accounts payable specialist, ambulance billing coordinator, and human resource director positions in the Clerk-Treasurer’s Office. Instead, those employees would stay in their current positions. Similarly, the Police Department’s multitask employee will now only get a $1,000 pay increase.
One thing that Houin’s amendment did not change was the promotion of the city coordinator position. “I see the promotion of the city coordinator as not a promotion, not a pay raise for that position, but the creation of an entirely new position,” Houin explained. “Now it just so happens that the mayor’s current secretary is qualified for that position, and at the same time, I think it’s a good compromise to eliminate the secretary position while we’re creating the new position, so that we’re not simply adding a new salary.”
The common council accepted Houin’s amendment and approved the 2017 salary ordinance on second and third readings, with Cook opposing all three measures.
