Local municipal employees are getting a bump in pay if all goes as planned.
The New Castle City Council recently passed Ordinance 3748 on first and second reading. It calls for a $1,000 bonus to be paid in the month of September and another $1,000 bonus to be paid in the month of December for employees of the New Castle Police Department, New Castle Fire Department and New Castle EMS.
The ordinance refers to the $168,584 in bonuses as “incentive pay” and stipulates the funds being used come from the Public Safety Local Option Income Tax (LOIT) that was passed late last year during a joint meeting of city and county elected officials.
“If we give somebody a raise in the budget that’s permanent and if the finances didn’t come in as expected then we’d have to lay somebody off and we don’t want to do that,” Mayor Greg York said in explaining the incentive pay approach.
The mayor said the city council’s finance committee was heavily involved in the decision-making process that resulted in the incentive pay idea and he supports it as well.
York said municipal emergency responders have received a pay increase of some kind each year since he took office, but are still underpaid.
“We’ve got studies from all over Indiana and for cities our size, like Vincennes and Huntington. Our fire, EMS and police pay were about $7,000 on the average lower than other cities with the same population. We were the lowest in the state for cities our size,” the mayor said.
This ordinance is expected to pass on third and final reading when the council next meets.
The council also recently passed Ordinance 3749 on first and second reading. This measure is designed to use tax revenue received from the state’s riverboats to provide a one-time $500 pay increase for the city employees who belong to AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) for a total one-time expenditure of $8,000.
It now appears this ordinance will be amended prior to a third reading and vote.
“This is not a done deal yet,” New Castle Clerk-Treasurer Christy York said. “The police ordinance is expected to pass, but the council is expected to table the [increase for AFSCME employees) because they are going to change the amount of the incentive pay. There will be a new ordinance presented for the new amounts.”
Christy York said because the incentive pay for emergency and non-emergency employees is funded by LOIT and riverboat revenues the expenditures won’t have any impact on local tax rates or the city’s financial bottom line.
The city has been collecting LOIT revenue since the beginning of the year and those funds have been accruing since then.
Revenue from riverboats is received each year in August. The council has earmarked $90,000 of the $107,305.90 received for grant matching and the city’s sidewalk reimbursement program, leaving the difference available for employee bonuses.
The city council next meets at 7 p.m. Monday in council chambers on the second floor of the municipal building, 227 N. Main St. That meeting is open to the public.
