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City employees get their raises

By J.D. Davidson
The Times-Journal

Published December 5, 2007

The Fort Payne City Council gave its employees raises Tuesday night, and many will get more than expected. Along with the increases, comes the promise of an in-depth salary survey to see where Fort Payne employees rank compared to similar cities.

“We’ve been working on a pay raise, and we think we’ve come up with a plan on what to do,” Councilman Andrew Hairston told a small audience that consisted almost entirely of city employees at Tuesday’s regular council meeting.

That plan includes a $1,850 raise – divided among each paycheck throughout the year – for each employee beginning Jan. 1. That replaces the mandated 3 percent yearly raise. For most employees, the dollar amount will exceed the potential percentage increase. It will not be lower than 3 percent for any city employee, Hairston said.

In 2009, the council will return to annual 3 percent raises effective on an employee’s anniversary date.

But that’s not all.

The council also authorized an immediate salary survey from Auburn University, which is expected to take around four months to complete.

The total amount for the “lump-sum” raises will be $486,000, nearly $250,000 more than 3 percent raises. It will also cut in half the projected budget surplus at the end of the fiscal year.

“When we took office we had some employees making as little as $15,500 a year, and I think that’s something we have not done a good job with,” Hairston said. “We are just trying to raise everybody up to where they ought to be.”

In effect, this year’s increase improves employees at the lower end of the pay scale by a substantially higher percent than those near the top. For example, an employee making $20,000 per year receives a 9.25 percent increase, while an employee making $50,000 annually gets a hike of 3.7 percent.

“One thing this does is raise the bottom man by this amount of money,” Councilman Richard Pridmore said.

Councilman Walter Watson encouraged department heads to communicate with employees the positive aspects of the upcoming pay increase.

“The main concern on the part of the employees is the 3 percent doesn’t go away. It took a lot of time to get that in place,” Fort Payne Police Chief David Walker said. “Albertville [employees] just got a 10 percent raise. As we gain, we’re backing up. We’ve got to work to get where the pay needs to be. It’s a serious issue in law enforcement.”

The salary survey is expected to give the public, the council and employees a better understanding as to Fort Payne’s pay scale compared to other cities and towns with similar revenues.

“I’m not willing to invest thousands of dollars without having a road map, and the survey is a road map,” Hairston said.

But some are concerned about questions that would come from the survey, specifically depleting city revenues or raising taxes to meet potential pay increases.

“If we need to catch up with what I hear the situation is, we couldn’t keep the city afloat. Maybe we would need to cut some people,” Watson said. “We can talk about how far we are behind, but the question is how are we going to catch up. I’m definitely not for a sales tax increase.”

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The Fort Payne Times-Journal | Publisher: J.D. Davidson

811 Greenhill Blvd.NW, Fort Payne, Alabama 35967 | Tel: 256-845-2550 | Email