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Mayor tightens rules for perks
YOUNGSTOWN
Beginning in 2012, Mayor Charles Sammarone said the city’s management and nonunion employees will have to earn perks — not get them automatically.
Those perks are for additional money based solely on the length of time employees work for the city, called longevity pay, as well as bonuses for having a college degree and for not using sick time, he said.
Traditionally, about 100 management and nonunion workers in city government receive the bonuses, which are included in union contracts.
“I’m pushing accountability,” said Sammarone, mayor since Aug. 1. “In the future, they’ll go through an evaluation process first. They won’t just pick up the perks.”
City council met Wednesday for the first time since Aug. 18. It was Sammarone’s first regularly-scheduled meeting as mayor.
The mayor initially sponsored legislation that provided the perks for this year, 2012 and 2013.
But he replaced that legislation Tuesday to provide those benefits for only this year.
Sammarone said he’s going to create an evaluation system for management and nonunion workers. The latter group includes certain secretaries such as those working for Sammarone, the law department and the finance department.
Sammarone said he would evaluate department heads and have department heads evaluate management and nonunion employees who work for them.
Employees with good evaluations would receive the bonuses, he said.
Those with “weaknesses” would be given help to resolve those problems, Sammarone said. But he didn’t say they wouldn’t receive bonus pay.
Council approved providing the additional payments for this year at Wednesday’s meeting.
Those additional payments, given at the end of the year in lump sums, are:
$64 a year in longevity pay for every year of city service after three years on the job with a cap of 25 years. For example, someone who’s worked for the city for 20 years would receive $1,280.
$153.88 for not using sick leave for a year’s quarter. If an employee doesn’t use any sick time in a year, that person would receive $615.52.
$380 a year for those with associate degrees from an accredited college, $450 a year for those with bachelor degrees, and $540 annually for those with post-graduate degrees.
$151.44 a month — $1,817.28 annually — for those eligible for family health-insurance coverage who decline it.
The city’s monthly family health-care premium cost is $1,417.87 — $17,014.44 annually — with employees paying 10 percent of that amount.
Meanwhile, city council approved contracts Wednesday with two employee unions till the middle of 2014.
Both contracts include freezes in base-pay salaries to the 45-member Youngstown Ranking Police Officers union and with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2312, which represents 91 employees, primarily clerks, secretaries, aides and inspectors.
Both contracts include bonuses for longevity, not using sick leave and not taking health-insurance coverage from the city. The police union also receives college-degree bonuses.
Future contracts will re-evaluate those “perks,” Sammarone said.
But Sammarone’s term as mayor ends Dec. 31, 2013, and most of the union contracts in place expire after that date. Sammarone has said he’s 99-percent sure he won’t run for a full four-year term in the 2013 election.
With two new members, Councilmen T.J. Rodgers, D-2nd, and Nate Pinkard, D-3rd, council made changes Wednesday to the make-up of its 12 committees.