RSS Feed
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Wage increase concern for Mayor Day Thomasville Mayor Sheldon Day expressed concern Monday regarding upcoming hikes in the federal minimum wage. The increases will affect the ability of the city to hire lower wage employees and young people for summer jobs, he said. The minimum wage will rise from $5.85 (July 24, 2007) to $6.55 (July 2008) to $7.25 (2009). (The city will still be able to pay 85 percent of the wage to teenagers under 18-years-old.) "The cost of doing business is going to go up significantly," he said. "…It's pretty obvious that we won't be able to hire as many people as we have been hiring to help us during the summer with our children's programs. "Regardless of what happens with the wet/dry Referendum (Aug. 14) and potential revenue from that, we will see a pretty significant increase in wage expenses over the next couple of years. "We had already taken some action this past year, in anticipation of this," Mayor Day said. "We moved up our entire (pay) scale $1. We're looking at moving our entire scale up another dollar next year. (That one dollar cost us about $60,000 last year…$65,000 this year.) "…We are going to look at comparing positions and like duties to other cities to see how competitive we are. "…Unless we have additional revenue sources in the future, we'll have less and less money to do special projects with," he said at the Monday council work session. "More and more of our money is going to go into our operations. "…Thomasville is successful because people in Thomasville always step up to do what needs to be done in the community. Sometime down the road, if the (wet/dry referendum) doesn't pass…we will have to look at ways in which we can possibly enhance revenues to help to continue to pay for the things we would desire for our community. …That ability to do extra things in our community continues to narrow," Mayor Day said. "It's been narrowing because operating costs have gone up. "…Also, we're going to be looking at new technologies - like the water department….There is a possibility for us to get our meter reading done via a WiFisystem, basically eliminating the need for additional meter readers. They can work on other projects, and through attrition, we can operate with less people. "We are going to have to find a way, in the long term, to operate with less people - just like the corporate (sector)," the mayor said.
The council will begin working on the fiscal 2008 budget in August.
|
for larger version       |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
