{"id":28987,"date":"2012-09-18T06:50:56","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T11:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=28987"},"modified":"2012-09-18T07:29:55","modified_gmt":"2012-09-18T12:29:55","slug":"city-council-discusses-budget-salaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2012\/09\/18\/city-council-discusses-budget-salaries\/","title":{"rendered":"City Council discusses budget salaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

Van Wert City Council\u2019s Finance Committee met on Monday to review salary and non-bargaining unit employee salaries for the coming year.<\/p>\n

The plan is to provide 2 percent across-the-board raises to non-bargaining unit employees and City Council members, although the increase to Council\u2019s $4,550 annual salaries would be less than $100 a year. The salary increases would add a total of $24,189.80 to the budget for Fiscal Year 2013.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Van Wert Auditor Martha Balyeat reads off budget figures as Fourth Ward Councilman Pete Weir looks on. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Council decided to continue a discussion on the proposed salary raises at a meeting on October 8, especially after City Auditor Martha Balyeat noted that she thinks the budget be tight because of using $500,000 in carryover funds as a “down payment” for the megasite project.<\/p>\n

Finance Committee Chair Joi Mergy and Fourth Ward Councilman Pete Weir both said they felt keeping City Council salaries where they are currently was fine with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think any of us are in this for the money,\u201d Mergy said.<\/p>\n

Councilmen At-Large Stan Agler and Brent Crone may not agree with that, at least as far as the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) is concerned. Both said they feel Council should take a look at what Council members are paid in other area communities are being paid, especially since new PERS guidelines mean that Council members would not receive a full year credit towards retirement because they are not paid the minimum of $600 a month needed for full credit.<\/p>\n

The city administration said it would do a survey on what City Council members are paid in similar area communities.<\/p>\n

Auditor Martha Balyeat noted that Council needs to look at putting together a \u201cstep\u201d program as part of a new salary administration plan for non-bargaining unit employees, similar to those in the police and fire departments, both of which are represented by unions.<\/p>\n

Such a plan would represent police dispatchers and police administrators (lieutenants, sergeants, records person and administrative assistant), as well as department heads, and engineering and administrative department employees<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no mechanism to move within the ranges of those job positions,\u201d Balyeat said, noting that the problem would be exacerbated in the next few years when a couple of department heads retire and new people are hired to fill those positions.<\/p>\n

Balyeat said the situation is not a problem now, because most of the department heads are at the top of the salary scale, but could become a problem if they retire and new people are hired.<\/p>\n

Council\u2019s Finance Committee agreed, after some discussion, to pursue looking at a plan to replace the current salary program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Van Wert City Council\u2019s Finance Committee met on Monday to review salary and non-bargaining unit employee salaries for the coming year. The plan is to provide 2 percent across-the-board raises to non-bargaining unit employees and City Council members, although the increase to Council\u2019s $4,550 annual salaries would be less than $100 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-05 13:03:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}