STRUTHERS Council OKs raise for sewage workers

Employees agreed to a health-care cost-containment provision.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
STRUTHERS -- City council has approved a 21/2 percent pay increase for 15 sewage treatment plant workers, effective Jan. 1.
The increase, approved Thursday, is part of a negotiated three-year labor agreement that includes 3 percent pay increases in Jan. 1, 2004, and Jan. 1, 2005. The approximate annual current pay range for these workers is $32,000 to $36,000 a year, said Mayor Daniel Mamula.
The agreement
The agreement also calls for a labor-management committee to investigate and make coverage modifications needed to contain health-care costs. In exchange for the raises, the mayor said, employees agreed that the city's cost for health care would be capped at $700 per month per employee. Employees would then pay half of any increase over that amount up to $50 a month, he said.
"I'm proud of the fact that we are able to continue to give our employees raises," said Councilman Daniel R. Yemma, D-3rd, adding that he thinks the employees deserve the raises. "We get an awful lot of work out of them. Most of our departments are trimmed down to minimum or near-minimum staffing levels. The fact that our city remains solvent in these very difficult economic times, I think, is a tribute to everyone down here," he said.
"I don't think what we gave was outrageous by any means," the mayor said of the raises. "If you compare them across the board to other cities, they probably are in the middle of the pack, and I don't apologize for treating our employees fairly."
Assistant manager
Council also established pay at $42,000 a year, effective Jan. 1, for Robert Gentile, assistant sewage treatment plant manager. The new arrangement removes him from the union and gives him an annual pay increase of about $1,000.
Mamula reported that negotiations between the city and the Fraternal Order of Police are to resume Jan. 7.
Council gave first reading to an ordinance that would impose 2.1 percent annual rate increases for water from Consumers Ohio Water Co. on Feb. 1 of each of the next three years. The average household pays about $29 a month for water, the mayor said, adding that the increase would be less than $1 per month per year for most consumers.
The agreement also commits the company to make more than $6.6 million in capital improvements during the three-year life of the agreement, the mayor said.