City considers raises

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August 18, 2008

By Janet Jacobs The Corsicana Daily Sun Mon Aug 18, 2008, 11:50 PM CDT

The Corsicana city council took a second look at the city’s 2008-2009 budget Monday, and recommendations have already altered it since July 25, when the first version was rolled out.

In this latest proposal, the budget calls for a 2 percent across-the-board pay increase for city staffers, a minimum wage of $10 an hour for hourly personnel, and 5 percent for three department managers. Those three managers were chosen because a salary survey of comparable cities — Greenville, Palestine, Athens, and seven others — showed those positions were below the average minimum salary for those same types of jobs in the other cities.

The positions recommended for the bigger raises are the Human Resources Director, Stephanie Carroll, who makes $52,596 a year; the police department records supervisor, who makes $33,012 a year, and animal control officer, who makes $24,000 a year. The Planning and Zoning director’s position is also below the minimum average, but Paul Ward only took his new job on July 1, and isn’t eligible for a raise yet, according to City Manager Connie Standridge.

Those four positions were targeted for increases because they are “double digits” below the average minimum for those jobs, explained Standridge.

The survey included 48 different city jobs, and Corsicana has 15 positions below the average minimum, including those three, although most are only 2-5 percent below the average.

The same survey showed that Corsicana has 13 positions that are double digits above the average, and another 19 that are single digits higher than the minimum average.

Nine people would be eligible for raises under the $10 minimum hourly rate.

To pay for the increases, the city is proposing a 67-cent tax rate that would collect an additional $448,948 over last year. The tax rate has not gone up from 2007-2008, but because appraisals are higher, the city can collect more money from the same tax rate. The council is expected to pass the tax rate at Tuesday’s city council meeting. The city council already approved a 15 percent water rate increase that will impact almost every resident in the county. Corsicana has a near monopoly on water sales in Navarro County.

The proposed budget also calls for hiring three new firefighters to man an additional ambulance. Three ambulances are staffed all the time, but the city owns five ambulances, which are manned by firefighters when more calls come in. Hiring three more EMS personnel would create another ambulance staff, and take some pressure off the current firefighters, explained Donald McMullan, fire chief.

Currently, the city is using about $40,000 in overtime pay to have firefighters man the ambulance. Having them work mandatory overtime so frequently is tiring, McMullan said. Hiring three more EMS workers will cost about $150,000 a year.

To partly pay for the new firefighters, the city may increase ambulance fees, currently at $600 for an emergency ride, plus mileage.

The ambulances are paid for by the city, county and fees. The service spent years in the red before the city cut six EMS personnel and then began to turn a small profit. This year, the service will collect an estimated $55,000 more than it costs to run it.

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Janet Jacobs may be reached via e-mail at jacobs@corsicanadailysun.com

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