Salem council clarifies payments

By D.A. WILKINSON

wilkinson@vindy.com

SALEM

City council passed an emergency ordinance Tuesday to clarify the formula for payment by city workers into the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, which went into effect at the end of 2005. The city will continue to pay the workers’ 8.5 percent cost.

Starting in 2006, OPERS incrementally increased payments that will be paid by the workers and credited to them.

The list of the 34 workers affected included everyone from the mayor to the law director’s clerk. Police, fire and water and sewer workers have separate contracts.

The city will continue to pay the benefits for the police and fire chiefs and the police department lieutenant.

After Jan. 1, those who were elected or appointed to city positions will have to pay the entire amount for their benefits.

City Fire Chief Jeff Hughes and Police Chief Robert Floor have said that overtime spending is up in their departments because of layoffs that began earlier this year.

But Councilman Dave Nestic said council already had put aside funds to cover the overtime. The fire department has about a 47 percent increase in overtime, and the police department has increased overtime by about 30 percent. Those figures are slightly past the middle of the year, Nestic noted.

He said that $120,000 had been budgeted for fire-department overtime. He could not recall the amount set aside for police overtime.

The city has placed a half-percent income-tax increase on the November ballot and is proposing to end the practice of not collecting the 1 percent income tax from people who live in Salem but work in other communities and pay income taxes there only.

Connie Smith told council, “My husband and I have jobs in Canton, where we pay 2 percent.” She wondered if the city would start to raise water rates to get more money.