MOUNT VERNON – Despite Councilmember Amber Keener’s urging to approve new pay levels for city employees, Mount Vernon City Council stuck to a first reading and set another discussion session on the issue.
The two ordinances covering nonbargaining employees had to start the legislative process from scratch with the first of three readings because council deferred the proposals in 2021. The city charter “resets” any ordinances that didn’t have a third and final reading – and a vote – before the year’s end.
“I would just like to urge this council to move forward on these pieces of legislation. We should not need two weeks to look over more material when we have had numbers in front of us over and over again,” Keener said before the ordinances were considered.
After the council’s last meeting in December, concerns of the administration were that Engineering Department and administrative office workers would walk out, she said.
“They did a lot of patching up the dam after we failed to pass this. And I think it behooves us all to take care of our people. That's what this is,” Keener said.
Auditor Terry Scott gave City Council the financial numbers, which members have trusted in the past. Now he’s being second-guessed.
“This is eight months of sitting in front of us. And these are our workers providing water and wastewater and services for our people and clearing our roads. This needs to go through,” she said.
Councilmember John Francis, the chair of the Employee & Community Relations Committee, disagreed. He moved to stick with the first reading to review along with the upcoming budget packet and because new members have joined council in 2022.
“It's just a matter of everybody taking that chance to get all the information they can,” he said.
Francis asked for a 15-minute committee meeting before the Jan. 24 legislative meeting.
Council approved first readings of an ordinance establishing compensation for supervisory personnel and an ordinance fixing the number, wages and benefits of hourly nonbargaining unit employees.
During comments by councilmembers after the legislative agenda was completed, new councilmember Joshua Kirby said he’d piggyback on comments Keener made, “that we really do need to get [the compensation issue] passed sooner rather than later [because] the staff has been waiting for that. And I’d really like to see that pass as soon as possible.”
