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Council divided on study of salaries
By CARY DAVIS © St. Petersburg Times, published August 16, 2000 ZEPHYRHILLS -- City Council member Jim Bailey Monday night blasted an independent survey of city employees' salaries, saying the study discriminates against the 20 city workers who are not recommended for a pay raise. The study, by Cody & Associates of Cocoa Beach, stated that Zephyrhills city workers are generally underpaid, and recommended that 120 of the 140 employees receive a raise. Bailey, who opposed the $7,000 study from the beginning, said the survey was biased because many of the raises were added to the final report after city department heads met with the study's authors to discuss the first draft. The 20 employees not recommended for a raise include the city's 15 rank-and-file firefighters and five code enforcement workers. "It's discrimination," Bailey told Nick Pellegrino, a senior partner with Cody & Associates, at Monday night's council meeting. "I think your report is tainted. "How can you give raises to 120 people and leave 20 people out?" Pellegrino defended his company's findings, saying the report is objective and based strictly on the job market and comparisons with salaries paid by other cities and counties in Florida. The report, he said, is meant only as a guide that council members can consult should they choose to adjust city workers' salaries. "You can do anything you want," he told council members. "But this is the market." The raises recommended by the report, if implemented, would cost the city $97,000. No action was taken on the report Monday night. Council members are scheduled to take up the study again at a workshop later this month. The city's draft budget for the next fiscal year calls for all city employees to receive a 5 percent raise. Bailey and council member Cathi Compton criticized the study's authors for suggesting a hefty raise for police officers but no pay increase for firefighters. The study recommends that the starting salary for police officers be raised from $25,706 to $29,766. The beginning salary for firefighters in Zephyrhills is $24,487. Pellegrino said the city needs to pay its police officers more in order to reduce the department's high turnover rate. The city has not had a problem with turnover in the Fire Department. Across the state, Pellegrino said, police officers and deputy sheriffs are paid more than firefighters. For example, he said, deputies in Hillsborough County are paid 30 percent more than the county's firefighters. "It's got to be an internal decision whether you want parity" between firefighters and police officers, Pellegrino told the City Council. Rank-and-file firefighters, who voted to unionize last year, recently approved their first contract with the city. Council members voted in February to bump up each of the 15 union members one grade on the city's pay scale. City Manager Steve Spina on Tuesday called Bailey's criticisms of the salary survey unfair, saying nobody in his administration told Pellegrino to recommend keeping the firefighters or code enforcement workers at the same pay level. Spina acknowledged that he and his department heads advocated raises for dozens of employees in a meeting with Pellegrino to discuss the first draft of the study. But they only did so, he said, because in Pellegrino's first draft, a number of employees were not recommended for a raise, while workers who perform similar jobs in different departments were. Council member Elizabeth Geiger also stood by the study. "I do not believe the report is biased," she said. "I think we should use it as information."
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From today's Pasco Times |
