Council Agrees to Salary Increases

The city of Athens’ Finance and Personnel Committee discussed a number of issues concerning the city’s current and future budgeting plans during their bi-weekly meeting on Monday night.In light of the city’s recent surplus of left over funds, council members discussed the future of their own salaries. In the most recent City Council election cycle, members voted to take the previous salary increase from three percent to zero percent. For the future election cycle in 2014 most members agreed to discuss increasing the salaries for future council members by one percent.“At the time [of the previous council elections] we were worried about fiscal issues and it made complete sense to take the lack of an increase,” First Ward Rep. Kent Butler said. “I would consider future increases.”The position of a council member, while considered part-time, demands a lot of time, according to a majority of those elected to the positions.“People see us negotiating for future salaries, but many other people have taken chairs here at the City Council,” Fourth Ward Rep. Chris Fahl said. “This is my main employment. I would like to point out that it is more than half time. I do not think we should be embarrassed for talking about this sort of salary.”The proposed one percent increase was estimated to be between $75 and $90, according to Steve Patterson.Another highlight of the meeting included Mayor Paul Wiehl’s proposed budget for 2013.The majority of projected funds predictably will be projected towards the city’s Fire and Police Department with 23.97 percent of the funds going to the fire and 28.10 percent going to police. The entire budget is estimated to be $12,597,392, according to the Mayor’s Office projections for the city departments and $9,724,010 for the staff of those departments.Within the personnel budget, the Police Department once again took the top spot with $3,260,471 in paychecks for employees. The Fire Department took second place with $2,442,452.“The plan is to have it [the budget] done by Dec. 3,” Wiehl said. “For the first reading, it should have everything we need to do. We do anticipate trying to buy some capital improvements.”Other outlying expenses went to the Auditor’s Office with $250,000 for Transfers and Refunds. The refunds, according to Mayor Wiehl, are mostly for taxes.The departments with the lowest expected budget for the upcoming year include the Treasurer’s Office with .28 percent and City Council itself with 2.92 percent of the funds.