Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 13, 1993 TAG: 9305130214
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
City Council has voted to provide special raises for 855 municipal employees who received less than a 5 percent raise last year.
Beginning July 1, the salaries for these employees will be raised to the amount they would have received if they had received a 5 percent raise last year.
Most of them are more senior workers who received only a 3 percent raise last year while many other younger employees got raises of 10 percent to 20 percent.
City Manager Bob Herbert said the special raises will cost $595,000.
These 855 workers will also be eligible for an additional 2.5 percent merit raise in the next fiscal year, the same as all other workers are eligible to receive. The city has about 1,850 employees.
Hundreds of city workers protested the pay issue last year amid a controversy over 10 percent raises for top city officials and a two-for-one pension plan for them and City Council members.
Because of the protest, council repealed the pension bonuses that gave two years of credit to the top officials and council members for each year they worked for the city.
As part of the new city budget approved this week, council has also decided to provide a 10 percent raise for employees who are promoted by two grades in the pay plan, and 15 percent for three or more grades.
Currently, the city provides 5 percent raises, regardless of how many grades are involved in the promotion.
This change in the city's policy on raises for promotions will cost an additional $155,000 a year.
The changes in the promotional and pay plans were recommended by a pay plan advisory committee that was appointed by Herbert to study the issues.
The committee, composed of nine city employees, spent more than four months and 100 hours in meetings to develop recommendations that were accepted by Herbert.
The changes apparently have satisfied most city employees.
Ed Crawford, president of the Roanoke Firefighters Association, said the recommendations resolve most of the employees' concerns about the pay issue.
"On the whole, they have addresses most of the complaints. There are still a few cases where there are problems, but I'm hoping these can be resolved," said Crawford, one of the protest leaders.
Crawford said he believes the pay controversy shows the need for the city management team to communicate with employees.
Last year's controversy was fueled by a timing problem because the city tried to solve a "compression" problem at the same time that it was giving 3 percent raises to employees.
Compression is the bunching of salaries for workers who are bunched together at the bottom of their respective pay scales.
Because the city in recent years had been raising the minimum pay for jobs by a larger amount than the merit raises for employees, many employees were grouped near the bottom of the pay plan.
Some employees who had been with the city for five or six years had been overtaken in salary by those who had started to work for the city more recently.
To eliminate the compression problem, council approved raises ranging from 10 percent to 28 percent for some workers, particularly those who had been with the city less than seven years.
More senior employes were angry because they received only 3 percent raises.
During the protest, council members and Herbert said the city couldn't afford to correct all inequities in the pay plan at one time.
They said they should have done a better job of communicating with city employees to inform them that last year's changes were the first step in a two-part plan to boost salaries for city employees.
by CNB