Jonesboro City Council approves salary plan, new pistol purchase

Jonesboro City Finance Director Suzanne Allen said Tuesday it took a lot of work to make city salaries more comparable to other cities and private industry. City parks employee Larry Jackson agreed.

“We have city employees who are on food stamps,” Jackson said just minutes before council members voted to appropriate $1.079 million to deal with salary issues.

The new plan sets aside $489,000 in $1,000 raises added to each full-time employee’s salary, $256,575 for a longevity plan that would give a full-time employee an annual payment of $75 for every year employed, up to 30 years; $242,078 for Social Security, retirement and federal withholding, $14,967 for minimum salary needs and $76,705 for compression issues.

The compression issues deals with newer employees who make the same amount of money as employees that have been with the city for several years. Jonesboro Mayor Harold Perrin said the compression issue has hit the police department in recent years, with rookies making roughly the same money as their training sergeant. The plan approved Tuesday night is a “start,” Perrin said, noting the plan will need a constant review.

Officials also plan to look at an incentive plan later this year. Allen said the cost would be covered through existing sales tax growth and reserves. The city has averaged about $1.2 million a month in collections from its one-cent sales tax, officials have said.

The Jonesboro City Council’s Finance Committee approved a similar plan during a Feb. 9 meeting. That proposal called for $1.079 million to be added as part of a salary plan, retroactive to Jan. 1, officials said at the time. In the 2016 city budget, council members set aside $20.2 million for salaries. The amount is about a 5% increase to the salary budget.

The salary issue has been debated by city officials since mid-2015, with officials asking Fayetteville-based Johanson Group to look at the issue. Johanson Group found that the salary schedule for Jonesboro was 6.5% below other cities including Springdale, North Little Rock and Conway. The new schedule will cut the 6.5% figure in nearly half, committee chairman Darrel Dover said at the meeting.

Allen said city officials have worked on the overall issue since 2009. The original plan set a minimum and maximum pay scale, with job difficulty and skills added into the equation, Allen said. In the past year, employees have asked city officials to reconsider the issue.

According to the plan put before the finance committee, the city put aside $503,947 for $1,000 individual raises that are added to each full-time employee’s annual salary and $364,089 for a longevity plan that would give full-time employees an annual payment of $75 for every year employed, up to 30 years.

The plan also set aside $242,078 for Social Security, retirement and federal withholding and $76,725 for helping with compression issues involving salaries.

The council also voted Tuesday to waive competitive bidding and purchase 102 Ruger pistols for the police department. The ordinance allows the city to purchase the weapons from Cruse Uniforms and Equipment Inc. of Jonesboro for $45,264.03.

Under the ordinance, the older weapons will be traded in for $30,300 leaving $14,964 to be paid by the city. Perrin said the weapons would be traded to the private company, which would have the ability to resell the weapons. The city would have no role in the sale of the weapons or putting the weapons back on the street, Perrin said.