News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The McMinnville Board of Aldermen working to increase city employee pay back to market value.
Mayor Ryle Chastain said a compensation study conducted this year showed that several city employees were underpaid, causing an on average six percent raise to be approved.
“We did have quite a few employees that were at or a little above market value for their given job, so it didn’t affect them as much,” Chastain said. “But especially some of those fire fighters, police officers and public works workers, it helped them out significantly.”
Chastain said those workers received up to a 10 percent raise. Chastain said now that the city has caught up, the plan is to continue step raises and cost of living increases to stay up-to-date.
“I think that’s always going to be looked at year to year in the budget, but now that we have everybody basically caught up, I think we will continue to implement step raises and cost of living adjustments on a yearly basis or every other year,” Chastain said. “It shouldn’t be as a much of a problem. We’ve taken it just among ourselves as a board to make sure we don’t get in that same boat again.”
Chastain said he hopes the raises will help change a historic trend of police officers and fire fighters leaving for other departments.
“It’s going to make it easier to recruit people and also to retain people,” Chastain said. “(…)They would get hired with the city of McMinnville, go to their respective academies, get a little bit of experience under their belt and move on to other communities that pay more.”
Chastain said it was time to place the employees first. Chastain said even a community poll conducted last year had raises ranked among the highest wants from tax payers.
