RTM Votes To Cover Wage Increase For Employees

Representative Town Meeting agreed to a fund transfer last week of $168,792 to cover wage increases for non-union and union employees.

Town Manager Mark Oefinger said that when he proposed the budget last year, he included wage increases of 2 percent across the board, because some contracts hadn’t been settled yet.

The council stripped out those wage increases and decided instead of they would add money to the contingency fund to cover the amount. Representative Town Meeting later cut the added contingency amount to about $100,000, he said.

In the meantime, contracts went through and the town council agreed to a wage increase for non-union employees, who had not had a raise in two years, Oefinger said.

The amount needed to be transferred to cover those increases was $168,792.

Some members of the town meeting felt that should not happen.

Rep. Rosanne Kotowski said the purpose of giving a zero percent increase is to save the town money, and it doesn’t save money if the increase is made up the following year.

Rep. Neal Gardner said the town’s grand list is going down, so he doesn’t understand why anyone is getting a pay raise.

The grand list for Oct. 31, 2012 went down 1.3 percent.

“If we’re not generating the income, why is anybody getting a raise? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not the way the private sector operates,” he said.

The RTM voted 21-7  on Feb. 13 to approve the transfer and cover the wage increase.