First Posted: 1/23/2015
Delphos Mayor Mike Gallmeier doesn’t have any problem giving salaried workers a 7.5 percent pay raise.
Yep, you read that right.
Not 1 percent. Not 2 percent or 3 percent, which has been the norm for public entities and private companies who have been giving post-Recession salary increases.
We’re talking double that amount … and add more.
Only it is “not an increase,” if you listen to Gallmeier. It is a “pay restoration” or “re-allocation,” he says, one that will bring the city’s nine salaried workers back in line with wage levels prior to Sept. 30, 2013. That’s the date when previous budget issues resulted in salaried employees taking pay reductions (or should we call them “pay shortages”), hourly workers being cut to a 37-hour work week, and 15 employees losing their jobs.
“Some of these guys have been doing the work of two to three people since we made the cuts,” Gallmeier said. “If we don’t pay people what they deserve, we’ll lose people. We’ve already lost people, and the job pool is just not that big out there.”
The increase would result in the following changes in pay:
•Shane Coleman, safety service director, from $61,490 annually to $66,101, or $88 a week.
•Kevin Streets, fire chief, from $59,674 annually to $64,149, or $86 a week.
•Kyle Fittro, police chief, from $56,173 annually to $60,385, or $81 a week.
•Todd Teman, sewer superintendent, from $55,419 annually to $59,575, or $80 a week.
•Craig Mansfield, parks superintendent, from $50,688 annually to $54,489, or $73 a week.
•Mark Slate, assistant police chief, from $46,750 annually to $50,246 or $67 a week.
•Marvin Lucas Jr., assistant water superintendent, from $45,616 annually to $49,037, or $65 a week.
•Eric Furry, maintenance superintendent, from $40,482 annually to $43,518, or $58 a week.
•Todd Haunhorst, water superintendent, from $39,017 annually to $41,943, or $56 a week.
Two of those people — Coleman and Furry — will be getting the full raise even though they weren’t in their jobs in 2013.
“The auditor said we could afford it, or I wouldn’t have suggested it,” Gallmeier said.
Plenty has changed to improve Delphos’ financial picture, Safety Service Director Shane Coleman explained to The Lima News last week.
“We’ve seen a pretty big staff reduction from a year and a half ago. With the expansion of Lakeview Farms, we’ll see an additional increase in revenue from water and sewer, and there’s obviously some income tax involved there. Last May, there was a tax passed for the Parks and Recreation Department as well.”
So, let’s get this right.
The salaried employees deserve a “pay restoration” because a lot of people lost their jobs; at some point the city is bound to get more money from a company’s expansion (how much, the city cannot say for sure, but it’s coming); and best yet, voters just passed a levy to maintain wages … we mean parks.
The increases are just one meeting — a mere City Council vote away — from being passed.
Hopefully, Delphos City Council will think long and hard before it rubber stamps such a large pay increase — and it is an increase, not a restoration. The hard fact is salaried employees had their pay reduced in 2013, giving them a new base rate. The city was not borrowing money from their wages under the guise that it would pay workers back.
The 7,100 residents of this city depend on their elected council members to watch over the city’s purse strings. If anything, council should be saving any extra cash to pay for the expenses the city knows it will be facing with fixes to its “state of the art” water plant. It could even consider giving residents a tax cut, since both Gallmeier and Coleman believe Delphos is flush with cash.
Delphos City Council will vote on this legislation at its next meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m., Feb. 2, a week from today. If approved, the pay increases will take effect immediately after the meeting.
ROSES AND THORNS: Make room for a hero in the rose garden.
Rose: To St. Marys police officer Josh Boos, who was able to talk a distraught 18-year-old from jumping off a bridge and committing suicide
Rose: To Brody Bowman and Landon Callahan, of Temple Christian School. They each won their age division in annual Elks Club regional free-throw shooting competition, featuring youth from Allen, Hancock, Auglaize and Putnam counties. Callahan made 20 of 25 shots and all five in a tiebreaker to win the 8- to 9-year-old division. Bowman won the 12- to 13-year-old division by making 24 of 25 shots. Both boys will compete in state competition on Feb. 14.
Rose: Mount Victory and Urbana, Ohio, each changed the names of their towns to honor the Ohio State Buckeyes national championship. Mount Victory changed its name for a day to Buckeye Victory while Urbana changed its name to Urban in honor of coach Urban Meyer.
Rose: To Timothy Grigsby, whose promotion to lieutenant sees him becoming commander of the Van Wert post of the Ohio State Patrol. Previously he worked in Lima.
Thorn: A Hughes Avenue woman in Lima reported to police the front door to her home had been kicked in while she was away. Muddy boot prints led investigators to a stolen television inside the home.
Thorn: To Joshua A. Sexton, 39, of Lima, who at 3 a.m. came up with the idea that his 2006 Chevrolet Colorado could outrun a Shawnee police car. He drove at speeds of 80 to 100 mph before a mailbox got the best of his vehicle on Grubb Road. He was charged with operating a vehicle while impaired, among other things.
PARTING SHOT: If three of five people suffer from the flu, does that mean the other two enjoy it?
