Algood To Run Numbers For Salary Increase Scenarios

Algood City Council members are committed to giving city employees raises in the new fiscal year, but now they need to run the numbers.

That was the result of a special called work session Thursday night. City Administrator Keith Morrison said they will look at the comparisons between an across-the-board raise and a staggered pay scale, as proposed by Council Member Ron Graves.

“Created four pay categories and he started at the lowest end with nine percent and then went down two percent for each category,” Morrison said. “So we’re going to kind of stay with that same thought process but instead of a percent, apply it as a strict dollar amount per category and apply to the pay scale itself so that from here on, those employees would come in at that rate.”

This discussion comes after the city already made significant salary improvements in the previous fiscal year. Graves said there is more that can be done to improve wages and make them more competitive. Graves said an across-the-board raise would likely keep the lower-paid employees at the bottom and allow the higher-salaried employees to continue to make more.

Morrison said looking at salary raises from Graves’ perspective would be similar to what is already budgeted for the seven percent across-the-board raise that was initially proposed. He said it should stay in the ballpark of around $136,000 to $150,000.

“I think giving (the council) some numbers for comparison and giving them some actual data for where it’s actually going to land and fine-tuning what Ron and some of the other council members are looking for in staggered scale,” Graves said. “And then applying it to the overall pay rates and then I think we’re good, I think we’re real close.”