City OKs repeal of pay raises

By DAVID SKOLNICK

CITY HALL REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN — City council approved the mayor’s recommendation to repeal pay raises for about 100 city workers for 2009 and 2010.

“We did what was in the best interest of the city by revisiting the issue,” said Mayor Jay Williams. “If we don’t get it right, we’re strong enough to go back and revisit it.”

The council, with the terms of six of its seven members ending Monday, held a special meeting Friday at the mayor’s request to freeze the salaries of the employees, including those in management positions.

The workers will receive 2.5 percent raises effective Tuesday — with the police and fire chiefs receiving 3 percent raises. But salary increases of 4.5 percent effective Jan. 1, 2009, and 3 percent effective Jan. 1, 2010, were eliminated.

Council, which approved the raises Nov. 19, can give more money to those workers in the future, Williams said.

Councilman Artis Gillam Sr., D-1st, said he originally voted for the raises without looking at the salary increases, some as high as $9,000 over the time period.

The pay raises are slightly less than what the city gave its police ranking officers union and what a fact finder recommended it give its police patrol officers union.

Because of that, Gillam said he agreed to the wage increases.

Gillam said it wasn’t until Williams asked council to repeal the 2009 and 2010 raises that he took a look at the salary amounts published Nov. 21 in The Vindicator for top city administrators.

“I don’t pay any attention to their salaries,” Gillam said.

After Williams spoke to Gillam, the outgoing councilman said his wife, Councilwoman-elect Annie, showed him the newspaper article with the salary increase amounts.

“If the mayor hadn’t brought it to my attention, they would have had” their pay raises, he said.

Gillam said he relied on information provided to him by the finance department that the city could afford the raises, and thus approved them.

City administrators have said the city could afford the pay raises now, pointing to money being saved through the city’s early-retirement incentive. But Williams said it is wise to re-evaluate the increases when it gets closer to January 2009 and January 2010 and to determine the effect of raises on the city’s finances and other factors at those times.

“When we first voted on it with the unions getting everything they need, it was fair to managers and appointed people to get the same,” said Councilwoman Carol Rimedio-Righetti, D-4th. “If we had the money for the union people, then management should get the same.”

By repealing the pay raises for 2009 and 2010, those affected by that decision are currently not in line to receive what union members would be paid.

When asked if that was fair, Rimedio-Righetti said, “I don’t think we’re being unfair to them. You need a balance ... It will be revisited next year.”

The decision to freeze — at least for now — the pay increases in 2009 and 2010 could be helpful with future union negotiations and the upcoming binding arbitration hearing the city has with the patrol officers union, Williams said.

“It can’t hurt,” he said.

City management employees were the first to have a 10 percent health-care premium copayment, which set a precedent, Williams said. All union contracts approved since last year include 10 percent copayments by its members, but there are caps on the dollar amount. Management employees don’t have caps.

skolnick@vindy.com