Portage mayor, council remain at odds over salary ordinance
Chicago Tribune
June 23, 2017
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-portage-salaries-st-0625-20170624-story.html
City officials will again try to determine if city workers not represented by unions will get raises, how much those raises will be and if the council can support Mayor James Snyder's proposed reorganization of his parks department following a contentious City Council special meeting Friday.
The council, in a 4-3 vote, rejected a salary amendment from Snyder that would have given him wide leeway on paying workers and would have reorganized the parks department.
On a 4-3 vote, the council also rejected a list of amendments offered by Councilwoman Elizabeth Modesto, D-1st, that would have given non-represented workers across the board a $2,000 raise.
Much of the dispute during Friday's meeting was based alleged promises made in private meetings between the mayor, council members and among the three budget committee members and whether that committee held appropriate meetings to discuss the budget.
"There's been other people in those meetings," Snyder said after the meeting. "We're working on (the amendment), and we'll get it done."
In December, the council voted unanimously to keep salaries for unrepresented city workers at their 2016 levels until the council could approve an amendment from Snyder that would allow him to give raises.
Council President Mark Oprisko, D-At large, said then he wanted the council to wait until the city wrapped up contract negotiations with the fire, police, streets and sanitation departments and utilities services workers to have a better idea of how to handle raises for non-union workers, a position he maintained Friday.
Since then, the council's three-member budget committee, chaired by Modesto and including members Pat Clem, D-2nd, and Scott Williams, D-3rd, have largely been at odds with Snyder and several council members on how to handle salary increase request from the mayor.
For several years, Snyder has been given salary ranges to offer employees. This year, some of those ranges were as wide as $15,000 for some department heads and lesser ranges for lower level employees.
The mayor also reorganized his staff, consolidating workers from five different employee levels to three.
One of the biggest bones of contention came in what to do with one employee, for whom the mayor wants to recreate an assistant parks superintendent position. The budget committee members, instead, called for keeping that employee in her marketing spot, which pays less, and keeping open two other coordinator positions.
"In the past, I've been able to just navigate and make changes as needed with support from the mayor," said Parks Superintendent Jenny Orsburn. "I was surprised this has become an issue since it's been known about since last summer."
Modesto said she'll convene a meeting of the budget committee to revisit the raises before the council's meeting in early July.
"It is what is," Modesto said after the meeting. "What can you do? We proposed something we felt was fair across the board for all employees, because some of (the council members) were trying to take the focus off the salary ordinance itself. They tried to attack the budget committee."
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