Monticello Council Discusses Raises

The Monticello City Council held a work session before its regular meeting Tuesday where the discussion on employee raises became quite heated, and left the council far from united on the subject.

When Mayor Bryan Standifer opened the meeting he said that the council requested a three percent raise across the board for employees.

He stated that the raise scenario does not include employees that are still in their probationary period or any part time employees. Ultimately, the raises would be for full time employees only with the exception of a sole maintenance mechanic position which is at

the top of the pay grade for that position.

Mayor Standifer told the council the total for raises would be $34,531 and once benefits are added the projected total cost to the city for raises would be $42,474.

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Throughout the hour long meeting the personnel policy was discussed in reference to employee raises and it was unclear if the policy was being followed or if the council could supersede the policy and give a raise. There are parts of the policy that were to be followed and then according to some members of the council, there was a section stating that the council is able to give a raise at its will.

Councilwoman Katherine Alexander opened by explaining that she was uninformed as to if the personnel policy was followed in preparation to awarding raises. She brought up four points that she was unclear about having been followed.

She added that she was aware that there was an externship with the electrical department but under the personnel policy, she stated that “new positions should be added by Mayor and Council.” Ms. Alexander stated that she was unaware of any such position being voted on.

She also noted that through the personnel policy it states that the city manager should adhere to a maintenance and salary plan for the departments, and before raises are negotiated that secure information concerning salaries paid, fringe benefits and change in cost of living all be determined.

Councilwoman Alexander then referred to the personnel policy again and read “department heads should determine if employees performing within expectations and should refer to all employment records. In order to be recommended [for a raise] the employee performance recommendation should be addressed. She also read that “a department head can recommend more increases but the performance must be documented.” She questioned if the department heads were recommending individual raises or across the board ones.

Councilman Randy Strozier said “in actuality Councilman Williams suggested that the employees get a three percent raise. In further conversation with [City Manager] Tim [Sweezey], he said that all of the employees were qualified to receive the raise. “we’ve discussed this two or three times. When it’s been discussed, you weren’t here.”

Mayor Pro tem Bobby Jacobs said, “Mr. Strozier, we have a policy to follow. If you don’t like the rules change them but procedures need to be followed.”

City Manager Tim Sweezey said, “every employee in the city has been evaluated and deserves a raise.”

Councilman Larry Thurman shared his thoughts saying, “I’ve been studying this since our last meeting. There are a lot of discrepancies. We have four people that are making $50k a year. I see why we’re having so many drawdowns. Some of our people are not doing their jobs.”

“I’ve been reading the policy a lot this week, he continued, “there is a lot that the council needs to come together and get together. There is a lot of realignment that we need to cover.”

Councilwoman Alexander commented, “We have a policy and if we don’t follow it, why do we write them. If we don’t follow policies we get a lawsuit. When were the meetings held with the City Manager and the department heads met? I thought that I was in charge. I do not have any knowledge. When was that meeting held?

“We have employees that have been disciplined recently. Within the last six months—so now we’re saying ‘you just did bad and now I’m going to give you a three percent raise.’”

Councilman Cornell Williams said “people are disciplined on their

job everyday. Everyone doesn’t work the same. It’s not a reward. It doesn’t mean that you’re bad at your job….Basically you’re saying that we need to police the personnel policy. What’s the purpose of having a City Manager?”

Ms. Alexander asked, “Have we determined what cost of living is? I haven’t seen any paper on cost of living and inflation. We usually go by the U.S. Economy Department numbers an take the easiest and say three percent a year.”

Mr. Sweezey said “Two and a quarter is the cost of living.” To which Ms. Alexander replied, “that’s not three percent.”

Mr. Sweezey said, “you said that you wanted department heads evaluated and employee evaluations when I began here in November. Peggy? Chief? Have y’all had evaluations?” [Both replied yes.]

“I’ve gotten all of the employees. You will find a 10 point test used for evaluations of employees. In my reading of the personnel policy, we have lots of stuff. But we have a lot of misalignment in the pay scale. I’ve made some small adjustments.” Some of the employees had to have a raise or a pay cut (from hourly to salary) to be adjusted into a different classification.

“I understood that the personnel policy was to be handled on day to day operations unless there was a discrepancy.”

Mayor Bryan Standifer clarified, “We have a personnel policy and overall the % or $ amount may be changed by whatever the Mayor and Council deem necessary. If we are going to go by the letter of this it is going to take a lot of work and a lot of meetings to make this work.”

Mr. Sweezey said, “we sometimes get roped into a snapshot of a job. Leaning on a shovel one minute is seen but 99 percent of the time they’re working. We take things to a working level. We have 22 folks and the job is getting done. They are doing the best they can with what they’ve got. I stand behind the evaluations and their supervisors.”

“We have one person underpaid,” said Ms. Alexander, “part of the evaluation was to farm that out to see what others were doing. Why give the slackers a raise and the ones performing above the same raise?”

Mayor Standifer said, “we don’t have a paid per performance measure. We are definitely not there yet. Comparing a slacker to someone else, hopefully the department heads are weeding out the slackers. If we’re saying that we have bad/slacking employees shame on us and on our department heads for carrying them.”

Mr. Stozier said, “this is a small town, we see problems. We ride around and we see. I ride around and see employees not working. It is not our job as a council to worry about what they’re doing and what they’re not doing. It’s the department head’s concerns. Do I think that they should be working? Yes. 60 minutes of that hour you should be working. I work hourly for a company and I don’t work 60 minutes every hour I’m at work. We’re trying to police what they’re doing because we’re on council which is wrong. We have someone allotted to that area to do that for us.”

“Shame on us that we’re not willing to do the work to evaluate our employees,” said Mr. Jacobs.

The work session continued with heated discussion, almost leading to fisticuffs, before the group agreed to meet again to address the issues next month.

(Editor’s Note: More on Tuesday’s Monticello council meeting will be published next week.)