Struthers considers amending pay ordinance

By Jeanne Starmack

Two council members voted against bringing the measure to the floor.

STRUTHERS — City council is expected to vote on whether to amend a pay ordinance so new department heads can receive their full salaries beginning in their first year.

Since the passage of the 2006 ordinance, all new hires receive 80 percent of their salaries the first year, 90 percent the second year and then 100 percent, said Mayor Terry Stocker.

Stocker said he decided an amendment was needed because the city was about to lose its assistant manager at the wastewater-treatment plant. The assistant manager, Bob Gentile, would be the likely replacement for manager Rich DeLuca, who is retiring in January, Stocker said. But Gentile indicated he intended to take another job because he couldn’t make as much money in Struthers, Stocker said.

Stocker said it is important to keep Gentile because he has a specialized Class 4 license in wastewater treatment. Managers with that license are hard to find, he said.

He also said Gentile has 29 years’ experience and has been helping to manage the plant for 13 years.

Stocker said he voted in favor of the ordinance the way it was written when he was on council in 2006.

But after being faced with losing Gentile and after realizing the police chief and fire chief also will be retiring in 2011, Stocker decided to recommend the amendment, he said.

“You don’t want to apply the same to entry level as you do to your brightest and best and risk losing them,” he said.

At an emergency meeting Oct. 16, council voted 5-0 to pass the amendment, but two members, Sherry Hartzell and Dan Yemma, were not there. The amendment needed six votes to pass in an emergency meeting, Stocker said.

So now, the amendment goes to a third reading, which will occur at the regular council meeting Wednesday. There, it will need a simple majority to pass.

Hartzell and Yemma had voted against bringing the amendment to the floor for a vote at the regular council meeting Oct. 14, said council clerk Megan Shorthouse.

Yemma said he thinks it’s fiscally irresponsible to change the ordinance, and it has already affected some department heads.

Hartzell said she wanted more time to discuss the amendment, adding that it took longer than “an hour” for council to pass the pay ordinance in 2006.

“They’re not willing to talk about it,” she said of the council majority and mayor. “They want it done their way.”