VICKSBURG, Miss. (AP) - Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. says city employees will know before July 1 whether they’re getting a pay raise.
“We’ll know where we’re sitting (financially) by then, because we’ll be in the last quarter (of the fiscal year) and then we’ll announce if we’re going to raise salaries,” Flaggs told the Vicksburg Post (https://bit.ly/1ifCg6n ).
If approved by the Mayor and Board of Aldermen, the raises would take effect Oct. 1 when the city’s new fiscal year begins.
Flaggs said a decision will come before he and two aldermen receive the final installment of a 5 percent pay raise set by city ordinance in 2002. Flaggs’ salary on July would go from $89,000 to $93,450, and the aldermen’s pay from $71,000 to $74,550.
Flaggs has been talking about raises since April when he met with city department leaders. He said he wants to start by raising the minimum hourly wage from $7.25 to $8.
To qualify for the minimum wage increase, Flaggs said employees must have worked at least six months with the city to get the increase by Oct. 1. A new employee who comes to work for the city in June, he said, would not see the increase until January.
Flaggs said he will ask Police Chief Walter Armstrong and Fire Chief Charles Atkins for their recommendations on pay increases. Flaggs has said he wants to increase public safety pay to retain experienced firefighters and officers.
After raising the minimum wage, and improving the pay scale for police officers and firefighters, Flaggs said, “then we can go to an across the board raise to all other employees, with some fine tuning because there’s some hefty salaries in this city, including mine.”
“I’m not about to raise my salary before I raise the man making $7.25 working in the cemetery cutting grass,” Flaggs said.
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Information from: The Vicksburg Post, https://www.vicksburgpost.com
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