City Council tables 2025 Salary Ordinance for further review

Thursday, August 15, 2024 at 3:15 AM

By Kathy Bottorff

8-15-24 Thursday News 3 A.M. E-6

The second reading of the 2025 Salary Ordinance was tabled for additional information by the Plymouth Common Council on Monday. There were a couple of items still being worked out. The mayor’s proposal for 2025 is a 3.5% across the board increase.

Mayor Listenberger explained that the City Clerk included a $1.00 per hour increase along with the 3.5% raise for some of the staff in her office to help bridge the disparity between the lower paid positions in the office with the more specialized positions. Typically, with percentage increases, eventually the lower positions will drift too far apart from the higher paid, if they are not addressed occasionally.

City Councilman Duane Culp questioned a couple of salary-exempt positions that will be changing to hourly for next year. The Department of Labor issued a new rule on the salary threshold for exempt employees that goes into effective on January 1, 2025. The feds increased the salary threshold to $1,128 per week or $58,656 per year so two of the three positions were moved to hourly. The two positions changed are the Parks and Rec Director and the Promotion of the City Coordinator. Culp wanted to understand why the third position, Human Resources Manager, was not changed to hourly. The Human Resources Manager received a pay increase of 20% last year to bring the position up to standard.

Clerk Treasurer Lynn Gorski explained that the city is considering a Specialty Pay of $.25 an hour for police officers and that longevity increased for all city employees, emergency services and civilian employees.

Councilman Duane Culp motioned to table the Salary Ordinance for 2025 for further investigation and his motion was seconded by Kayla Krathwohl. The city council members unanimously approved tabling the ordinance.