Trustees OK 4% pay raises

The raise matches what union employees have received.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF Writer
BOARDMAN -- A day before a meeting where they talked about a need to ask voters for more money in 2008, trustees approved 4-percent raises for department heads and some other nonunion employees.
The raises, effective Jan. 1, were approved at trustees' regular meeting Monday after a lengthy executive session.
At a strategic planning meeting Tuesday, Clerk William Leicht told trustees that the township is spending more than it's taking in and that he expects a need to ask voters to approve a levy in 2008.
The disparity between revenue and expenditures has been discussed at previous meetings.
The last time that the township asked voters for a new levy was in 1995.
Elaine Mancini, trustee chairwoman, said the 4-percent increase coincides with what unions representing township employees have received in recent contracts, she said.
Who got 7 percent
The raise for Larry Wilson, road superintendent, who just completed his first year in the superintendent position, was about 7 percent because it included the annual pay increase as well as a first-year increase, Mancini said.
She said the administrative employees and department heads were the first township employees to make a co-pay toward health insurance. The co-pay, started in October 2004, is 10 percent.
Mancini also said that Leicht figured the 4-percent increase into the budget.
Trustee Thomas Costello said there is some concern about the message that raises send to the public.
"But what is the message that we're sending our department heads if we say the people that are working for you are worth 4 percent, but you're not?" he said.
Some union employees earn more annually than department heads because of overtime, Costello said.
He also pointed out that department heads started contributing to health insurance at the 10-percent rate. Unions that agreed to a co-pay have had it phased in at 5 percent, 7.5 percent and 10 percent in the first, second and third contract years, respectively, Costello said.
How voting went
Trustees voted 3-0 for all of the raises except for that of Curt Seditz, township administrator, which was opposed by Kathy Miller.
She said she voted against that increase in part because of a DUI citation Seditz received in August in Poland. Seditz was in a personal vehicle, not on township time.
He pleaded no contest and was convicted of the charge in September and returned to work after completing an alcohol treatment program.
"I just don't think you reward that kind of behavior," Miller said.
She contended that she tried to get her colleagues to hold off on voting for pay increases until next year but was unsuccessful.
Miller approved raises for other department heads and administrative personnel.
"These are our department heads, and they work hard, and some of them deserved to get a raise," she said. "Maybe some of them didn't."
The department heads and their 2006 annual salaries:
USeditz, $81,336.
UPolice Chief Jeffrey Patterson, $80,209.
UFire Chief James Dorman, $71,126.
UZoning Inspector Darren Crivelli, $53,474.
UWilson, $68,000.
UDeputy Administrator Christina Griffith, $48,672.
UInformation-Technology Coordinator Tammi Rush, $43,264.