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Mayor wants to raise salaries, bonuses for Youngstown management workers
YOUNGSTOWN
City council won’t act today on a series of proposals from the mayor to raise the salaries of city management workers and increase payments for various bonuses for items such as having college degrees and for not using sick time.
Mayor John A. McNally is sponsoring seven ordinances that he said will be pulled from today’s council agenda at the request of Councilwoman Janet Tarpley, D-6th and chairwoman of the finance committee, so council can first hear from him and Finance Director David Bozanich about the monetary increases before a vote.
McNally said he has no problem with the delay.
The mayor’s proposal would increase all “management” salaries by 1 percent, effective Nov. 1, and then by 1.5 percent, effective Jan. 1, 2015.
There are about 170 full-time city employees considered management, including about 55 who work in the city’s court system, said Kyle Miasek, deputy finance director.
The salary increases are what has been offered to unionized city employees. Some have voted in favor of union contracts with those pay increases while others have rejected contracts, though those unions say issues with health insurance were the reasons the deals were voted down.
Management employees have worked without pay raises since 2008.
Until this year, union contracts for the past three to four years didn’t include salary increases.
The additional payments being proposed for management workers were largely in line with extra money given to the unions, and haven’t been increased for management in eight years, Miasek said.
The increases wouldn’t impact the mayor, law director, finance director or city council except bonuses for college degrees.
The amounts currently paid annually are $390 for an associate degree, $450 for a bachelor’s degree, and $540 for a master’s degree. That would increase to $405, $470, and $565, respectively, in 2015.
The proposals include increasing longevity pay — based on the number of years a person works for the city after being there for at least three years with a 25-year maximum — from $64 per year to $65 per year.
That would mean a person working for the city for 10 years would go from getting a bonus of $640 a year to $650 a year.
Also, management employees receive $153.38 per quarter in a bonus if they don’t use sick-leave time in three-month periods of the year.
That amount would increase to $159 per quarter.