Maitland city manager, city clerk get bonuses

With what they forecast to be a stormy budget season brewing on the horizon, Maitland City Council members say now, more than ever, every dollar spent or received counts.

So when a decision on whether to raise the salaries of the city manager and city clerk was presented in front of the Council on Monday, March 12, the members had to decide where to draw a line between thanking their staff with words or dollars.

“If we could afford it, I'd approve the same increase we gave the rest of the city staff,” Councilman Phil Bonus said, referring to the 2 percent merit-based raise approved for city staffers in the 2012 budget passed last September.

But Councilman Ivan Valdes pointed out that though the city clerk and manager do a great job, the city, in fact, might not be able to afford any extra dollars toward bumping salaries come the next few months leading to budget season.

“I don't think it's in our best interest that just because it was budgeted in there we should do it.… it’s our responsibility to the city and residents, whose money we're spending, to be wary that every time we turn around our revenue is being cut,” he said.

Valdes said that if the raise were given, the money would likely eventually have to be made up for elsewhere in the staffing budget.

“Sometimes the people at the top have to suffer a little bit so that the people at the bottom don't,” he said. “… I want to protect the people beneath them who can least afford to take a cut.”

In the past three years, city staffers’ salaries have remained flat. Assistant City Manager Brian Jones said the last merit-earnable raise was offered for 3 percent in 2009. He said the city budgeted $200,000 for this year’s 2 percent raises, with the actual fiscal impact being less as raises are issued throughout the year on hiring anniversaries.

If any increase was to be given to the city manager and clerk, instead of a raise in salary, Valdes proposed a 1 percent one-time lump-sum bonus be awarded instead, to save the city money in the long run that is associated with an overall salary raise, from increased pension, unemployment and paid vacation. Councilwoman Linda Frosch countered his proposal by bumping it up to a 2 percent one-time bonus, to which the Council members, aside from Valdes, agreed.

“We need to really show our people love, and not just a pat on the back,” Mayor Howard Schieferdecker said. “We need to seal the deal.”

But the Council members all agreed that any and all money spent going into budget season needs to be spent wisely. “Every dollar counts,” Councilman Phil Bonus said. “We know this upcoming budget season is going to be rough.”

Jones said the Council was right to be cautious.

From possible cuts in funding from both the state and county level, he said, “There's just a lot of uncertainty out there right now.”