Girard officials discuss pay raise

By John W. Goodwin Jr.

Council as a whole will now discuss the matter.

GIRARD — City officials are discussing the possibility of increasing the pay rate for an appointed position and an elected position.

Members of council’s finance committee discussed how much of a pay raise should be given to the city’s safety service director and auditor. The discussion came on the heels of a request by Councilman Brian Kren to review the salaries.

The safety service director now earns $48,000 annually and last received a pay increase in 2005 when the service director and safety director positions were combined. The auditor now earns $38,600 annually and last received a pay increase in 2003.

Councilman and finance committee chairman Frank Migliozzi said he is willing to explore an increase in pay for both positions, but he does not want to see the level of controversy that surrounded the recent debate over pay increases to the police and fire chiefs.

“I don’t want to go into this like we did with the police and fire chief positions. We, this committee, need to be unified,” said Migliozzi.

A proposal before council earlier this year would have taken the police and fire chief’s salaries to $55,016 from $47,350 and $49,125 respectively, but that led to major contention and discussion among council and city administration. Ultimately council agreed to a raise of up to 4 percent after an evaluation.

Migliozzi suggested a similar structure of up to an annual 4 percent pay increase for the safety service director position after a yearly evaluation.

Councilman Mike Costarella, who is also a member of the finance committee, said council needs to start planning for the future when looking at the safety service director position. He said the salary must be high enough to attract a good pool of talent.

“I believe the safety service director is one of the most important positions in the city, and we don’t pay it enough to attract people to it in the future. I think looking forward, we need to start bumping it up to attract more of those people,” he said.

Migliozzi, discussing the auditor’s pay rate, compared the rate of pay for the auditors in neighboring communities such as Hubbard, Niles and Struthers and determined that the auditor here should earn a minimum salary of $41,860.

Costarella said he would like to see the auditor salary somewhere in the neighborhood of $43,000 annually. He said the additional funds would be to make up for increases in employee health-care contributions. Other employees, he said, received similar offsets for the increased contribution.

The pay raise issue will go before council for discussion. The safety service director and auditor are paid out of the water, sewer, street and general funds on a percentage basis.

Any decisions on pay increases will also have to be presented to the state fiscal commission, which oversees spending in the city while the city is in fiscal emergency.

To be released from fiscal emergency, the city must cover its deficits, produce a five-year plan detailing how it will remain out of fiscal emergency and fix any accounting problems that may have been in place when it entered fiscal emergency.

jgoodwin@vindy.com