Mayor: Repeal raises for 100

Pay raises for about 100 would be frozen for 2009 and 2010, at least for now.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

CITY HALL REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN — Mayor Jay Williams said he was never comfortable about giving 10.3 percent salary increases to about 100 city workers, including those in management positions.

The discomfort led him to ask the lame-duck city council to repeal pay raises for 2009 and 2010 as its last official action.

Council will meet today to act on the mayor’s request. The terms of six of its seven members expire Monday.

City council unanimously approved the 10.3 percent salary increases, up to $9,000 increases for some, at its Nov. 19 meeting, effective Tuesday through Jan. 1, 2010.

Williams is asking council to keep the 2.5 percent pay increase, effective Tuesday, for the city workers, but to repeal 4.5 percent raises effective Jan. 1, 2009, and 3 percent raises effective Jan. 1, 2010.

Also, Williams is requesting council amend a separate ordinance passed Nov. 19 regarding pay raises for the police and fire chiefs. The chiefs would still get 3 percent raises, effective Tuesday, but council would repeal their raises for 2009 and 2010, 4.5 percent and 3 percent, respectively. Overall, the chiefs’ raises are 10.9 percent through Jan. 1, 2010.

City officials will re-evaluate the pay raises, for those who were to get them, when it gets closer to January 2009 and January 2010, Williams said. The decision will be based on the city’s finances and “other pragmatic considerations,” he said.

The decision had nothing to do with editorials in The Vindicator objecting to the pay raises, the mayor said. The raises were merited for “most” of the management personnel, and the decision to increase salaries is something the city has done for many years as a matter of routine, he said. But Williams said his gut told him that the decision on the raises needed further consideration.

Williams wrote on his blog — mayorjaywilliams.blogspot.com — that he “strayed away from my philosophy by not fully evaluating the opportunity to effect significant change” with the pay raises.

He also wrote that this decision wouldn’t pass his “Central Square Test.” The test figuratively has him in the city’s downtown Central Square where he could comfortably defend any decision he’s made from any direction.

The pay raises allow city officials an “opportunity to set the tone and change the precedent as it relates to the overall cost of government.”

By re-evaluating the pay raises, Williams said he’ll be better able to get a handle on the city’s personnel costs, which exceed 75 percent of the city’s budget.

Williams says he makes 100 decisions a day, and is comfortable with each of them.

But “I never reconciled to myself” the pay raise decision, he said.

Outgoing Councilman Paul Pancoe, D-6th, called his vote for the pay raises “one of the biggest blunders I’ve made,” and said he “made a mistake” supporting it. Though Pancoe cannot attend today’s council meeting because of a work commitment, he fully supports the proposed changes.

skolnick@vindy.com