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City gives 5 percent raise to employees

Building department created



The Decatur City Council delivered some financial help to city employees Monday night.

The council approved a 5-percent pay increase, which will start May 2.

The council has been discussing the raise for employees for the past month to combat inflation. The council held the first reading of the ordinance with the pay increase and the budget amendment for the salaries of the newly created building department at its April 11 meeting.

The cost of the pay adjustment is $205,577 for the 11 pay periods remaining in the fiscal year.

“It’s important to show appreciation to our employees,” said councilman Eddie Allen. “With inflation and how hard it is to keep good people, we wanted them to know they were appreciated.”

Council member Melinda Reeves added: “We want people to enjoy their job and stay with the city.”

Before the council took action, City Manager Brett Shannon said, “On behalf of all city employees, they say thank you.”

During the previous discussion about the raise, the council stressed the pay increase was for inflation more than performance based.

“Inflation has hit everyone really hard. This is more of a cost of living adjustment,” said Mayor Mike McQuiston.

The council also approved the creation of the building department, which was part of the recommendation of Craig Farmer of Municipal Planning Consultants during his report April 11 on the city’s development process and regulations. The department will be headed by the chief building official. The ordinance also created the position of assistant city manager for planning, development and infrastructure.

“It was prudent to look at where we are as an organization and our procedures. We enlisted an individual with a lot of experience and knowledge and they provided documents that we reviewed a lot over the past couple of months,” McQuiston said about the creation of the department.

During her quarterly report on the planning and development department, planning director Dedra Ragland questioned the creation of the building department and moving those responsibilities from her department.

“In the last 17 years, I’ve had two evaluations and received outstanding reviews,” Ragland said. “I have managed planning and building inspections in those 17 years. Building inspections have been under planning… There’s an implication or impression this is something new and my span of control is too great for me to handle. Because I’m over building inspections, I’ve been set up to tell builders and developers no. This is no different than any other planning department that oversees building.

“One of the recommendations is to split building into its own department and add another layer to the decision-making hierarchy… I don’t understand how this is beneficial to the public. Planning and land-use issues will still be routed to planning, fire issues to the fire department, utility issues to engineering and public works, with the final decision going to an assistant city manager. A building official is not in position to overrule planning, fire, engineering or public works.”

After the reports from all departments, councilman Will Carpenter questioned Ragland about her report and the inclusion of the listing of accomplishments.

“I thought it was necessary with the decisions being made tonight in regard to building inspections and planning,” Ragland said. “The way I read Mr. Farmer’s report was it implied that this was a unique occurrence with me being over planning and building inspections and that’s not the case. I’ve been over the planning and building inspections for the 17 years that I’ve worked for the City of Decatur. I wanted that to be clear to the council and while that division was over my oversight we did have some vast improvements.”

Allen responded it was time for the city to evolve and change.

“As we all know, things change. We either accept them or we don’t,” Allen said. “We all change and hopefully for the better. That’s all we ask for is to make things better hopefully for everybody.”

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