Henderson needs to pay all of its employees more money, City Council members were told Tuesday night during the first of three nights of budget presentations from department heads.
Fire Chief Danny Wilkerson, Police Chief Glen Allen and Recreation Director Alan Gill took turns addressing the city’s substandard pay in comparison with similar cities and the negative effects.
Of Tuesday night’s presenters before all council members except Harriette Butler, only Planning Director Grace Smith and Henderson-Vance Downtown Development Commission Executive Director Sheri Jones didn’t complain about the pay scale. But the salaries in Smith’s department led to a discussion about pay equity.
It was the first night of a revamped budget process in Henderson. Instead of waiting for City Manager Eric Williams to present them a budget in May and rushing to review and revise that plan by June 30, council members are examining the budget requests each department sent to Williams in mid-March.
Council member Bernard Alston, who is presiding over the sessions as the chairman of the Finance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, said the idea is for the council to get an unfiltered look at what each department wants. He said the council should be better prepared to respond to Williams’ budget.
Money is expected to be tight in that spending plan because of Henderson’s continuing economic struggles and because of a mandate from the state’s Local Government Commission to restore the city’s depleted general fund balance.
Rising gas prices also will put pressure on the budget. Departments budgeted using a figure of $1.55 per gallon — the city pays Rose Oil far less than the street retail price — but Finance Director Traig Neal said the price has jumped in the past few weeks to $1.80. That will cost the city thousands of dollars.
“Ride more horses,” Alston joked.
Still, the fire and police chiefs said Henderson can’t afford to wait to do something about salaries.
“I think all starting salaries and all salaries ought to be adjusted,” Wilkerson said. “I think we need to take a hard look at that.”
The city last increased its pay scale across the board in January 2002, Allen said.
Wilkerson requested that the city raise the salaries of 16 of the Fire Department’s 36 current positions to reach the midpoint of their salary ranges and thus improve morale and retention. He also asked that the starting firefighter salary be raised from $23,555 to $26,148, the average starting salary for nine North Carolina cities of similar size.
“I like that idea of career development,” council member Elissa Yount said, adding that it’s worth the slightly more than $12,000 cost to get the lower-level people up to the midpoints of their salary ranges in the Fire Department.
Wilkerson agreed with Yount that the Fire Department’s main pay problem is in the lower ranks.
Allen, however, would like to see a 5 percent across-the-board raise for his department, which would cost $114,588 if enacted July 1 or $57,294 if enacted Jan. 1. He said only two of the more than 50 people in his department are paid at the midpoint or better for their salary ranges.
He estimated that Henderson police at all levels are paid an average of $3,000 less than comparable officers in comparable cities. He also said Henderson’s starting police salary is the lowest in the state for an agency of its size, responsibilities and requirements.
He said the situation leads to rapid turnover of officers. He estimated that the city invests more than $40,000 in a new officer in the first, yet many leave after two years. As a result, Allen said, the city has lost something like $1 million in his eight years as chief just from training and losing officers to cities such as Wake Forest.
Allen did not increase his salary proposal in his line-item budget request.
Gill proposed upgrading his six recreation program supervisors (one is a frozen position) by one pay grade to reflect their responsibilities and requirements. He showed that Henderson’s pay is 16 percent less than the average of comparable positions advertised across North Carolina in the past year. Implementing that proposal would cost a total of $9,539 for fiscal 2006.
Smith had no such salary requests, but council member Mary Emma Evans questioned why husband-and-wife team Brownell and Gwen Wright have the same pay grade but a $5,000 difference in salary.
Evans wanted reassurance that the difference wasn’t merely a reflection that one of them is a woman. That led to efforts to explain the many variables that affect where a salary falls within the range of a pay grade, including longevity, starting salary and merit increases over the years.
Williams assured Evans that the city analyzes merit pay each year to ensure there are no patterns based on sex or race.
Some highlights from each of the budgets presented Monday:
* The Fire Department is asking for a total of $2,399,517, up 23.6 percent from a revised budget of $1,941,167 for the current fiscal year. The department is actually projected to spend $1,897,640 for the year ending June 30.
Wilkerson noted in his written budget materials that he was following Mayor Clem Seifert’s directive to ask for whatever is needed to operate or enhance operations.
His proposal includes four new firefighters, the first step toward staffing a third city fire station, which Wilkerson would like to open by March 2007. Those four firefighters account for $167,296 of the Fire Department’s higher budget request.
Under the chief’s proposal, the city also would hire four firefighters in each of the following two years.
Wilkerson said the city needs to buy a $350,000 pumper truck to replace one that’s 31 years old. He speculated that the pumper truck is “the oldest piece of rolling stock the city has.” That money is not in his overall budget.
The fire budget for lease payments already is up nearly $62,000 to reflect the first of six annual payments for the new ladder truck.
Wilkerson also wants to replace a 1983 Ford pickup truck with a 2006 four-wheel-drive half-ton pickup at a cost of $16,500.
The Fire Department also needs $9,000 to fix concrete around the Dabney Drive fire station, which also is 31 years old. At the Garnett Street fire station, the department needs a $3,000 phone system to replace an obsolete, decaying system.
Wilkerson wants to spend $17,500 on 35 air-pack masks with voice amplifiers to enhance firefighter safety and $4,000 on carbon monoxide detectors to install in owner-occupied homes that are older and have heating systems that could produce the deadly, colorless, odorless gas.
He would spend $8,050 on 35 pairs of leather boots, which he said are much better than rubber boots, and $10,600 to outfit the four new firefighters he wants to hire.
Installing an exhaust ventilation system in each of the two fire houses would cost $48,000.
One positive change, Wilkerson said, is that the U.S. Fire Administration’s annual grant program now requires a 5 percent local match instead of 10 percent. The chief said $4,870 will cover the match for $97,355 for 39 face masks with voice amplifiers, 34 sets of protective clothing and one thermal imaging camera.
* The Police Department budget request totals $4,141,370, up 11.6 percent from an approved 2005 budget of $3,709,389. Actual projected spending this year is $3,663,085.
Allen said he wants to unfreeze four police officer jobs to get the force up to its level of eight to 10 years ago, when the department had far less work. The chief said that with those four additional officers, the Henderson force would be about the same size as comparable departments.
“My point of emphasis,” Allen wrote, “is not so much to say that the Police Department needs more money to operate better (we do!), but to rather underscore the fact that plans and strategies are of little value without the funding and resources to assure their proper implementation.”
Aside from manpower, the biggest new item in the police request comes in the capital budget. The police chief wants to replace nine Ford Crown Victoria police cruisers at $21,000 each and a parking vehicle for $19,000. The total cost, with taxes and tags, would be $214,340. Under a three-year lease plan, the city would have to pay about $109,000 in the first year, then $42,000 in each of the next two years.
Two new initiatives Allen discussed are a victim/witness services coordinator and the Volunteers in Police Support, or civilian patrol, program.
Unlike the victim/witness support person in the District Attorney’s Office, Allen said, the services coordinator in the Police Department would be more active and more available, including being on emergency call to go to crime scenes.
“I just think victims are underserved,” the chief said.
Because of a grant, the city’s cost for the coordinator would be about $30,000.
As for the civilian patrol, Allen did not include coss estimates, but he said the patrol will need a cruiser and uniforms. He emphasized that both the vehicle and the uniforms will look nothing like sworn officers’ equipment.
The civilian volunteers would be eyes and ears only; they would not make arrests or carry out any adversarial actions, Allen said.
“It’s a wonderful idea,” Alston said “But I honestly see problems administering it.” He worries about some people trying to abuse their limited power.
The chief said background checks will be crucial, and he’s leaning toward starting the program with retirees.
* The Recreation and Parks Department’s request for 2006 is $1,078,570, up 35 percent from the approved 2005 budget of $798,583. Projected actual spending this year is $798,504.
Gill said the budget reflects an effort to return to funding levels of 2001-02, before severe cutbacks kicked in. Funding the past three years fell $313,862.
The goals for the coming year include restoring the original hours of the Aycock Recreation Complex, with Sunday hours, a 6:30 a.m. opening instead of 10 a.m. each day, and a 9 p.m. close on Saturdays instead of 6 p.m.
Gill also wants to contract for law enforcement scurity at the Aycock center, “where there is a real and growing need for security to provide for safety of both patrons and staff,” and hopes to expand the front-desk and lifeguard staffs, particularly during the summer and other high-use times.
The budget request notes community efforts to arrange bus routes to the Aycock complex, as the Vance County Coalition Against Violence is doing, and says buses will be too much for the current staffing. “That is the most important need of the Center,” the request reads, “to have adequate staff available to monitor the Center and provide programs at the Center.”
The Recreation Department has two frozen positions: superintendent of recreation programs, whose duties Gill has taken on, and recreation program supervisor for special populations, special programs and nonathletic programs.
The latter position has been the source of much discussion before the council and drew a lot of attention again Tuesday night. Gill noted that because the county pays 45 percent of the recreation expenses, the cost to the city would be only about $20,000 to fill the job.
Still, Gill does not anticipate unfreezing that position.
He does want to increase pay for part-timers, boosting facility supervisors from $6.50 per hour to $7 per hour and giving scorekeepers $7 per game instead of $5.50. He said the failure to increase those pay rates the past three years has led to younger and younger people being interested in the jobs.
The department is seeking its first funding for capital improvements in two years, including $81,500 for urgent facility needs such as the repaving of two tennis courts at Fox Pond Park and the repair of the fence at the Rollins baseball field.
* The Planning and Community Development Department is requesting $275,070 in fiscal 2006, down 4 percent from an approved 2005 budget of $286,555. Actual projected spending this year is $250,660.
Smith has two significant changes from the current fiscal year: She wants to fill the planner job that has been vacant in her five-person department since Corey Williams became code compliance director in July, and she wants $2,000 to cover the expenses of state Division of Community Assistance consultants who will help the city create its first land-use plan in three decades.
* The downtown development proposed budget is $95,070, up 7.9 percent from an approved 2005 budget of $88,074. Actual projected spending this fiscal year is $88,068.
The big changes are an increase of $3,000 for liability insurance and a proposed $3,000 contract for maintenance of the CSX parking lot between Garnett and William streets. The first cost is a result in a change in city insurance carriers; the new carrier won’t provide the Downtown Development Commission’s liability coverage. The parking lot maintenance is an item that has been requested and rejected for several years.