MONROE — The Monroe Common Council voted to approve salaries and wage rates for department heads and non-represented personnel for 2020, to take effect with the first pay period of the new year.
Amounts are increased by 1% from 2019 figures. The new numbers were approved at the council’s regular meeting Dec. 2.
Some of those positions include the utilities finance and budget manager, whose salary went up from $55,692 to just under $56,250, and the director of public works, whose salary increased from $83,720 to just over $84,550.
There’s no longer a listing for the assistant city administrator, the now-eliminated position that earned $55,926 in 2019, but there is one for the as-yet-unfilled role of community development director, at $72,800.
Other changes visible in the list include the combining of treasurer and clerk — earning $48,074 and $44,226, respectively, in 2019 — into a single position with a salary of $48,659.78, which city clerk Brittney Rindy receives to perform both jobs.
There are other jobs, Rindy said later, that might appear at first glance to have received a raise greater than 1%, but that this actually reflected a change in their base pay during the year.
Another difference in the 2020 list is the absence of steps and grades for the positions. Previously, each position would have a pay grade. Within grades were steps, and employees on this payment structure could receive step raises.
Mayor Louis Armstrong said later that the lower steps were automatic; after the median point the increases weren’t guaranteed.
Though grades and steps were listed along with the 2019 wage and salary figures, they actually weren’t used that year, said Rindy.
“This is part of my effort to create a more sustainable budget,” Armstrong said, of his choice to opt for simply a flat percentage salary increase, something that was previously happening alongside steps, which he said was kind of a “double dip.”
He did note that there were benefits to a step system, which had been implemented by former city administrator Phil Rath, such as providing a guideline for where someone’s salary should be, based on comparable positions.
At the meeting, council president Brooke Bauman said she hoped to get back to the system previously used.
“A lot of our department heads have really stepped up in the absence of a city administrator,” said Bauman at the meeting. She said it was “kind of frustrating” that their compensation didn’t reflect that.
Armstrong said later that whether or not to reimplement steps was something that the new city administrator would be able to sort out.