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City talks more cash for staff

Julye Keeble 
Staff Writer

How much money to offer staff in raises, as well as the possibility of using up to $500,000 in coronavirus relief funds for a one-time employee payout, was a hot topic during the March 8 meeting of Uvalde City Council.

District 2 Councilman Everardo “Lalo” Zamora suggested offering employees the highest amounts of those discussed.

“Let’s throw some numbers out, I could say 5 percent for everybody, and $2,500 for the COVID-19 relief,” Zamora said. “Those are numbers. Can we meet those numbers?” 

City manager Vince DiPiazza said Zamora’s suggestion of $2,500 per employee, the payout of the pandemic relief money would equate to about $500,000. 

District 3 Councilman Rogelio M. Muñoz suggested allocating $2,000 per person for the one-time payout – which DiPiazza said would equal about $398,720 – and a 4-percent general raise. 

Mayor Don McLaughlin Jr. initially concurred with Muñoz on the 4-percent staff raise. After DiPiazza said the difference between a 4 percent and 5 percent raise equated to about $65,000, McLaughlin said he would prefer to offer city staff the 5 percent raise.

Last August, while refining the city budget, McLaughlin noted that the proposed $26 million city budget did not include staff raises, though the city increased their participation in the employee retirement funds. 

He said at the time he hoped to revisit the issue of raises in the middle of the budget cycle, similar to what council members did for the 2020-2021 budget cycle.

Donald McLaughlin Jr.

McLaughlin also suggested $2,000 in one-time payouts, though he said he was not against Zamora’s suggestion of $2,500.

“I think we should take the opportunity,” McLaughlin said. “This is that once-in-a-lifetime thing that comes along and I think we should reward our employees.”

City public works director Juan Zamora also advocated for higher pay amounts, noting that employee retention was critical to city functions.

“Can I say something real quick, Mayor? This is just on behalf of the employees. Right now we’re having a difficult time retaining employees. One of the reasons is – and I’ll give a good example – today, I just had an employees call me, he had an interview somewhere else, because everything’s going up,” Zamora said.

“We’ve got to have a plan,” he continued, saying he was looking out for city employees. “We’ve got to set something where we can retain employees, and reward that employee that that has dedicated the city 20-plus years. … I know it’s hard, it’s a lot of money.”  

DiPiazza said they were looking at two funding sources, noting that any salary increase would come from the city budget. He said now that final federal rules (for utilizing the approximately $4 million the city has been allocated from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act) have been released, the federal government allows for a one-time pandemic payout to city employees, similar to what the Uvalde County recently approved.

DiPiazza said the second federal payout of pandemic relief funds is expected in August, and the city has more than $2 million on hand from the first payment. 

He initially hoped to allocate the entirety of the funding to projects needed at the city wastewater treatment facility, but said the government has now made it possible to use some of the money to pay employees.

Rogelio Munoz

DiPiazza and assistant city manager Joe Cardenas said though the wastewater repairs and improvements are needed, and will likely cost up to $4 million dollars if all planned work is done, that some of the work can be financed. Cardenas said if the city did not have the federal money they would have had to finance the entire project.

On the matter of general staff raises, DiPiazza said raises of 3 to 5 percent were feasible, though he preferred to be fiscally conservative and avoid the top end. He said a 5-percent general staff raise would equate to about $315,000 in expenditures for the approximately 175 full-time city employees.

“Going back to the first one, the general cost-of-living increase, we’ve done what we can, sort of an analysis to budget. We think we can absorb an increase across the board for employees of 3, 4, or 5 percent,” he said. “We could do 5, but I’d rather be more conservative about that, just because who knows what happens down the road. And the other part of that is the council’s been very good about improving annual boosts to employee wages almost every year.”

District 2 Councilman Hector Luevano asked staff to come back at the subsequent meeting with printouts of the numbers involved for each potential plan.

Though no action was taken, councilmen hope to come to a decision in two weeks, and directed staff to place the two potential employee pay issues on the agenda at their March 22 meeting as an action item.

The meeting began at 6 p.m. at city hall.

Lalo Zamora