South Iowa News

The Bloomfield City Council held a special meeting on Jan. 4 to discuss pay raises in the city, a response to unionized City workers who had requested pay increases.

During the meeting, which was streamed on YouTube, the council learned that the current contract between the union and the City includes a 2.25% pay increase due to inflation, which the City did not plan to object to. But when the union sought an additional 2.5% pay hike, City officials hesitated and City financier Tami Jo Day offered numbers showing the impact on the budget for various raises.

“To me, it just comes down to who's going to pay for this,” Councilman Jake Bohi said during the meeting. “And it's going to come down to the taxpayers. The economy today is affecting everyone, not just City employees. I do feel the pain, but I don't think it's a good time to be raising rates.”

The council learned during the meeting that the City to date is within its budget, hitting 47.5% at halfway through the fiscal year, and members reviewed the City budget in comparison to inflation to see what could be done.

It was noted that nearly everything costs more, and the City is already weighing cost-cutting measures to avoid raising utility rates to keep up.

The discussion between the council and the union president was heated at times, with the union leader noting that a pay raise would help boost morale. But Mayor Chris Miller balked at that position, noting that an across-the-board pay increase is not fair because the workers don’t do the same jobs at the same pace.

The council agreed to increase pay for police officers an extra $1.50 an hour. Additionally, union workers will receive their 2.25% increase according to the contract, and other employees across the city will get no more than 2.5%.