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The consensus at the conclusion of the Morristown City Council work session held Tuesday indicated the Fiscal Year 24 Budget, as proposed, is ready for its scheduled first reading on June 6.

That consensus did not come without discussion.

The Pay and Benefits portion of the FY24 budget includes recommendations from a study by Evergreen Solutions. Council members attended a presentation of the company’s findings on May 19 led by Evergreen Project Manager Rob Williamson.

As reported by City Administrator Tony Cox in his budget presentation on May 12, council approved short-term improvements to city employee pay and benefits for the FY23 budget until the pay study was completed.

The Evergreen study was to address market conditions and the city’s overall compensation system, and according to Cox, help bring the city in line with peer communities, address positions that are not at market rate and adjust for ‘compression’ (time an employee has spent at a particular job grade or level).

The proposed FY24 budget set aside 8% of current salaries to implement the pay study recommendations – prior to the Evergreen presentation which had been unexpectedly delayed until after Cox’ presentation. The pay study recommended 7.8%.

“It is not uniform across the board; it is variable based on your market rate for the position you’re in, based on your tenure with the city and your tenure within the position you currently hold,” Cox told Council members on Tuesday. There is a formula based on that. Everybody gets a minimum 2% COLA and the adjustments on top of that are based on the formula for market rate, tenure and tenured position.”

Cox added that the plan is a two-year phase in, after Council member Kay Senter mentioned the number was different for Year No. 2. The year one amount is $623,496, year two: $313,412.

“My understanding is that we would come to the market rate entirely this year, and then next year would be merely tenure within your grade or within the city, if you’re not able to do that,” Cox said.

There was discussion between Cox and Senter regarding as to which of several color-coded options listed on the Evergreen plan had been proposed to be included in the FY24 budget.

“So, both years, we are only going to pay attention to the purple number?” she asked, to which Cox said, ‘Purple, yes.”

Senter countered with, “So when do we do the orange?”

After identifying the color-coded section to which Senter was referring, Cox said, “That was an option that he (Williamson) did not recommend,” to which Senter responded, “But I thought the statement was that we would be bringing everyone to the minimum.”

“The purple includes the minimum,” Cox said, referring to the option as a ‘hybrid,’ with a reply from Senter: “That’s not the way it looks here.”

“There were two options given to you. One was ‘go to bare minimum, market study’ or ‘take market study and tenure and do both’; that’s why it’s a hybrid, it includes both components,” Cox said.

Senter expressed her thought that some employees might be concerned that “we are voting on this before it is implemented …”, to which Cox responded, “Well, you would have to approve it before we implement it.”

After discussion between the two reiterating the earlier statement that each employee would be getting a minimum 2% COLA increase and that the increase was included in the hybrid option (purple) – Council member Chris Bivens joined in the discussion.

He asked and Cox answered that the FY23 short-term solution was a 5% raise across the board.

“I guess my question is when the people call the Council members and say ‘You voted to do this in this budget year. How did you vote to do this when nobody knows pre-existing how much anybody’s going to get?’ Is there going to be a sheet that Council receives that shows how the 2% or greater went, 7.8% or whatever: will we get to see that before the second reading?” Bivens said.

Cox responded, “Do you want an individual list of each person, their current pay and the increase in the study?”

“Do we need it?” Bivens asked.

“I don’t think so,” Cox answered.

Council member Bob Garrett asked Cox when the employees would get the pay information.

“Our intent would be to create a letter to each individual indicating with the second pay period in June that your pay is going to go up ‘X’ percent, based on the market rate, the tenure with the city, and the tenure within your position,” Cox said. “Each person will be notified of that as we get you to first (a) approve it, so it will be something we can say is no speculation and (b) that we can be ready to implement it in July.”

Bivens added, “We’re being asked to pass something that we don’t know what each individual is getting and we’re trusting you to say that that’s fair.”

Cox responded: “You’re trusting Evergreen Solutions. I did not prepare the report … but it is a complex, wide-ranging solution and if you start delving into what Billy Bob and John Smith are getting compared to one another, you’re opening up a can of worms that I don’t think Council wants to get involved in.

“If you approve the overall policy and direction of how we want to reward the market rate, time and tenure with the city and time and tenure within the position, there’s a formula that allocates that and makes the calculations for each individual. We’ve gone back and spent a lot of time, digging through records, making sure we’ve got when everybody got promoted, when they got in this position, how long they’ve been with the community. I don’t think Council needs to get down into that level of detail. You might as well come in and start processing payroll,” he said.

Bivens responded: “I’m not saying that at all. You’re not going to get the grief off it, we are. When Joe Bob don’t get an increase and Billy Joe did, they’re not going to call you. They’re going to call us.”

“Well, everybody gets at least 2%. Nobody gets nothing,” Cox said. “The average person gets 8%. Some people get quite a bit more.”

Bivens then asked if the city has enough funds to cover a 4% increase for all employees. Finance Director Michelle Woods calculated and determined Council would have to find an additional $390,000 to $400,000 per year.

Cox said “so if you want to raise taxes – “That’s not what I said,” Bivens responded. “You understand what I said; I said ‘Is that a possibility?’”

“If you want to raise pay more,” Cox said, “all we have to do is identify the revenue,” and a moment later adding “the property tax generates about $100, so 4 cents on the average,” before Morristown Mayor Gary Chesney interjected, “We’re not interested in raising property taxes for 2% payroll.”

Bivens reiterated, “I’m not interested in raising property taxes,” with Council member Bob Garrett quickly adding, “He didn’t say raise the property taxes; he just wanted to know what it cost. He didn’t suggest that we raise that, you twisted what he said.”

Bivens opined: “I just asked a simple question to the city administrator, how much would it cost just to raise it just 2 more percent,” followed by Chesney closing out that part of the discussion: “If we do that, though, we’ve got to get the money somewhere …” he said.

The general FY24 Pay and Benefits discussion continued with Senter remarking that she appreciated Williamson saying that the lowest pay anyone would receive is $15/hour.

“I thought that his explanation was interesting: if you bring somebody in, not full-time, they may make up more than $15/hour depending who they are paired with,” she said.

Cox added, “If they are doing similar work. For example, if we brought in a part-time accountant, there would be a rate associated with an entry-level accountant and they would paid part-time based on that hourly rate.”

Council member Joseph ‘Joe’ Senter shared his past experience with part-time co-workers.

“The people who worked part-time got paid double-time for holidays. And us poor little guys who were full-time didn’t get anything … People who are topped out, what would you do for them that’s been here 30 years?” he said.

Cox responded: “We went back and looked, we have very few if any who are topped out. Most people, including police, are given the opportunity for advancement and promotion and that moves the rank higher.”

As the discussion ran its course, Garrett surmised, “I think when you’re talking about salaries for 336 people, no question is bad. No question could be bad if you’re asking questions about something this important to so many people that we are responsible for.”

Council member Al A’Hearn proposed, “Do we agree that this is a better system than the one we are using now?” receiving nods of agreement from fellow Council members.

“We got into trouble back during the recession, and we have never really been able to catch up,” Cox said. “At that point the city had spent ourselves down into being broke; we had to furlough people, we had to defer things … we gave cost of living increases, but we didn’t give any increase for time and grade. And I think this will catch us up, but it’s going to be up to us to maintain the system. The system is only as good as how well you work it, how well you fund it.”

“That was a hard time back then,” Garrett said.