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WARREN -- Along with increasing the salaries of several elected and appointed officials, city council also will be giving itself health care and other benefits at the beginning of 2024 if proposed pay-raise legislation is approved.
According to the ordinance, if adopted, Warren council members will be entitled to receive "health care insurance coverage, health care insurance benefits, life insurance coverage and life insurance benefits," in accordance with current city policy.
Warren City Councilman and finance committee chairman Greg Greathouse, D-3rd Ward, said council members do not receive health care coverage because they are considered part-time employees of the city.
Warren City Auditor Vincent Flask said the health insurance benefits will not apply to all members of council.
"It is council's intent for this to be a secondary option," Flask said. "If (council members) have access to other health coverage, the city's coverage would not apply to them."
Greathouse said if the legislation is adopted, he is unsure how many members would take advantage of the health insurance benefit, but he does not believe it would be all of council.
"At best, half might use it, and worst, nobody uses it, but I don't know," Greathouse said.
"The city's got first-dollar coverage," Greathouse said. "If I sit here and I'm healthy and I don't have any health care costs for the year, it didn't cost the city a nickel. But if you go in the hospital and have a $50,000 heart bypass, it costs the city $50,000."
Greathouse said city council and the finance committee have not had extensive conversations regarding how much the added benefits might cost the city, but he does not believe the benefits will add significant costs.
"It's negligible," he said. "There's life insurance as well and that's next to nothing. It's not very expensive at all."
PAY RAISES
The proposed raises are set to cost the city $260,145 in 2024 alone.
At a recent finance committee meeting, Councilman Ron White, D-7th Ward, said being on city council is an around-the-clock job. He believes the raises for council members, and several other elected and appointed officials, are warranted.
"I don't care what area of society that you're in, nobody just sits back and (does not) get raises over 14 to 16 years," White said. "I feel that we've been doing a good job as far as how we spend our money, how we take care of business and everything else that needs to be done for our city."
White said he plans to vote for the legislation.
Councilman Jim Shaffer, D-4th Ward, said he receives 10 to 15 phone calls per day from residents with issues. He, too, believes the raises are warranted.
"I know I'm the new guy on the block … I could care less if I got a raise or not, I've only been here for six months," Shaffer said. "There are people who have been in here for a long time and they deserve a raise. They deserve more money than they get here and I definitely support this."
Councilman Ken MacPherson, D-At-Large, questioned the legislation based on how the mayor's salary, and then all salaries connected to it, would be determined.
According to the proposed ordinance, the mayor's salary must be 1% higher than the base salary of the highest-paid, wage-earning employee in the city. At no time will the mayor's salary be lower than 1% above the base pay of the city's highest paid official, the legislation states.
Police Chief Eric Merkel and fire Chief Ken Nussle are earning $46.12 per hour, which is $95,929 per year.
City Law Director Enzo Cantalamessa said the last information the law department received prior to drafting the legislation was that Nussle and Merkel were the highest base-wage salary earners.
"What that means is, in the case of Chief Nussle and Chief Merkel, is their wage is basically fixed," Cantalamessa said. "There are wage earners in both the police and fire departments who would earn more than the two chiefs, but that would be on the basis of, for example, in the police and fire departments, captains and lieutenants being eligible for overtime and shift differentials that take them technically higher than what the highest base wage earner would be."
Cantalamessa said income is not fixed for employees such as the captains or lieutenants who are able to earn overtime pay or work additional hours and that their pay can vary yearly.
"What is knowable is the base highest wage or salary, in which case would be the two chiefs," Cantalamessa continued. "So the analysis and discussion with the finance department has been to isolate who are the two highest base-wage earners that I guess you can say would not be eligible for compensation above a base-wage."
MacPherson asked if there would have to be any council action to increase the annual wages of the mayor if the salary of the highest paid base-wage earner's salary were to increase. Cantalamessa said, as he understands it, there would be no need for council action.
"Once it's determined who the highest base-wage earner is in the city, add 1% to that, and that becomes the mayor's salary," Cantalamessa said.
Under the proposed legislation, Mayor Doug Franklin would see his salary increase from $87,796 in 2023 to $98,820 in 2024 and $104,873 by 2025. As the salary of the mayor would change, so would all other employees under Franklin.
MacPherson questioned whether such staggered increases would be allowable, mid-term, under Ohio law. Cantalamessa said it was allowable as the raise legislation would go into effect before the start of the new term.
MacPherson also asked if in a scenario where a new contract is negotiated, which raises the pay for the highest base-salary earner in the city, the ensuing raises of all appointed and elected officials' salaries would be allowable. Cantalamessa said it would be.
Questions also were raised as to how the structure of basing elected and appointed officials salaries on the mayors was conceived. Greathouse said the system suggested in the legislation would be performance based. He said if the city is in a good place financially, the unions will do well and pay will increase, and if union pay increases, it then would trickle down through the elected officials.
No other city in Trumbull County bases its pay for council members or other officials on the mayor's salary.
Shaffer, a long-time school teacher, compared the salary schedule to those seen in most public school districts.
"I know that the school districts use that for paying their teachers and all the extracurricular activities, basing it on the principal's pay I believe," Shaffer said. "All the coaches and stuff are paid (based) off that as well. The head coach gets like 50%, and the assistant coach gets 25%, if you've coached more years you get 30%. There (are) percentages."
Greathouse said the discussion for the pay raise legislation started because of difficulties the law department encountered in retaining or hiring new lawyers.
Cantalamessa said the law department has lost one assistant prosecutor this year and it expects to lose another at the end of 2023. The deputy law director earns $67,620 per year. Two additional assistant law director staff members each earn $64,251 per year.
"I've gotten no interest whatsoever at that rate, nor do I expect to get any interest at that rate for lawyers because it's below market rate," Cantalamessa said. "The public defender's office starts higher than I start assistant prosecutors. And I don't have the latitude to say 'Well OK, you've got 15 years of experience, I can offer you X more than what the rate is, given your years of training and experience,' because I don't have that latitude. Council sets the salaries for all city employees and departments. I'm confined and constrained by what the ordinance says in terms of being able to recruit lawyers."
When asked why not just present legislation to raise the salaries of just those in the law department, Cantalamessa questioned whether it made sense for subordinates of the law director, auditor or mayor to earn more than their superiors. He said under the current salary structure, that likely would happen eventually, as it has in the police and fire departments.
"Is that a way to do it? Yeah," he said. "Does it do anything for leadership morale? No."
"The longer you go without correcting the wage structure, the less palatable it becomes when you ultimately are forced to look at it because of reasons like attrition or retirement or people leaving for better opportunities or quite frankly, people not wanting the positions because they don't pay enough."
Greathouse said the legislation will be presented for passage at the first council meeting in November, which is Nov. 8, one day after the general election.