OPELOUSAS, La. -- The Opelousas City Council will have to rethink a citywide raise it approved Monday after Mayor Donald Cravins, citing insufficient funding, said he will veto the measure.
The Daily World reports (http://bit.ly/13v4Dl0 ) Cravins had warned earlier in the meeting that if the council passed a budget that included a raise for all city employees, he would veto it.
"If you vote to give it to everybody, no one will be able to get it," he said, referring to the potentially unsustainable nature of the raise.
Pay raises were a hotly debated item weeks ago at the city's budget committee meeting. The raise the council voted on Monday was actually a raise that was suspended for the 2012-13 fiscal year for the same reason ? insufficient funding. Because the council suspended the raise rather than denying it, it is legally bound to grant that raise before it grants any subsequent raises should funding become available.
The original budget committee recommendation was to grant the old raise only for municipal civil service employees, which includes street, parks, water, sewer, tourism and executive employees. Excluded were police, fire, city court and city marshal employees.
The municipal civil service raise would cost the city around $90,000 before benefits and overtime. If it included the other employees, it would add another $177,000.
Police Chief Perry Gallow and Fire Chief Lee Cahanin both lobbied for their employees to be included in a 2.5 percent raise because, they said, segregating which employees get raises would be unfair and their employees regularly put their lives on the line.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/31/3533487/opelousas-mayor-to-veto-raise.html
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