St. Charles public works employees get raises

St. Charles public works employees will all receive raises retroactive to May 1 thanks to a new union contract agreed to by the city council this week.

The agreement, with Teamsters Local Union No. 330, gives members a 2 percent raise for the current budget year and another 2 percent raise for the 2011-2012 budget year. The raise for 2011-2012 could be even higher. If any nonunion employee receives a greater than 2 percent raise, the union contract automatically gives Teamsters union members the same raise.

The raises will result in salaries ranging from a minimum of $21.61 per hour for inventory control storekeepers and public services laborers to a maximum of $35.06 an hour for building and plumbing inspectors.

All city employees had a wage freeze in place for the 2009-2010 budget. Teamsters received a 3 percent raise in the budget year before that. The city council approved the new raises without much discussion except for Third Ward Alderman William Turner, who cast the lone “no” vote on the contract.

After the meeting, Turner explained he cannot justify giving the employees raises when so many city residents, especially senior citizens, are seeing a loss in income.

“There's just something not fair about asking people who haven't got a raise in a long time to fund raises for people who've recently gotten raises in the past,” Turner said.

City officials are still projecting a slight budget deficit to end the year. Finance Director Chris Minick said the city built money for the raises into the budget to account for the raises even before sitting down at the negotiating table. The hope was to be able to absorb the raise, even retroactively, without exasperating the possible budget deficit.

“We anticipated that they'd get a raise,” Minick said. “It is a guessing game, but with the budget we have you just have to estimate conservatively. The projections are that we'll be able to handle the increase.”