The Urbana City Council heard the first reading of eight ordinances establishing the salary and benefits for the fire chief, assistant fire chief, central staff employees, police chief, police lieutenant, director of administration, director of finance and director of law during the regular meeting on Tuesday. City administrator Kerry Brugger said that these salary ordinances hadn’t been addressed since 2011, although council removed the expiration date from them in 2013.
“As we have been through the last couple of labor contracts, it seemed pretty clear in the salary ordinances and the central staff ordinance that we really needed to do a deeper dive into what we had in them and dig into the content,” he said. “Hence you’ll see … that the fire chief, the police chief, assistant fire chief and lieutenants, their ordinances have drastically changed. The number of pages went from 12-14 down to 2-3. As we were reviewing the central staff ordinance, which is actually the hub of all of these, we found that all their individual ordinances were a virtual repeat of the central staff ordinance.”
Brugger said that after revising the central staff ordinance, he next deleted language from the individual ordinances that was the same as that in the central staff ordinance. The ordinances will be updated every three years following the passage of labor agreements.
Central staff employees have a pay range in accordance with seven established pay grades: pay grade 1, $8.50 per hour to $19.00 per hour; pay grade 2, $24,516 annually to $40,393; pay grade 3, $26,823 to $45,580; pay grade 4, $32,730 to $50,178; pay grade 5, $39,697 to $61,541; pay grade 6, $44,151 to $70,991; and pay grade 7, $59,964 to $91,959. Additionally, all employees are to receive a base wage increase of 2.25 percent, 2.25 percent and 2.5 percent in each of the respective years, and are eligible for periodic merit increases within the established salary range.
Effective Jan. 1, 2019 through Dec. 31, 2021, the fire chief will be paid in accordance with an annual pay range of $83,446 to $95,366; the assistant fire chief with an annual pay range of $79,472 to $90,826; the police chief with an annual pay range of $83,446 to $95,366; the police lieutenant with an annual pay range of $79,472 to $90,826; the director of administration with an annual pay range of $89,475 to $111,844; the director of finance with an annual pay range of $75,347 to $94,184; and the director of law with an annual pay range of $72,425 to $108,554.
Brugger said that he would be reviewing all job descriptions later in the year.
Also at this meeting:
– Council hear the second reading of an ordinance raising ambulance service rates and charges. At the last meeting, council member Dwight Paul said that in reviewing the ordinance he discovered that basic life support is increasing by 1 percent, advanced life support one by 2 percent, and advanced life support two by 2.5 percent. Ambulance service rates have not increased since July 2015.
– Council unanimously passed a resolution authorizing the director of administration to apply for, accept and enter into a water supply revolving loan account on behalf of the city for the construction of the phase two water main replacement program and designating a repayment source for the loan.
– Council unanimously passed a resolution to dedicate the public sanitary sewer main, turn lane improvements, traffic signal, flashing school zone signage and related roadway signage installed by the Urbana school district and the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission at the new PreK-8 school on South U.S. Route 68.
– Council member Tony Pena announced that he will be resigning from council at the end of March to accept a pastoral job in Baytown, Texas. Council will appoint a replacement to serve as an at-large member for the remainder of his term, which ends Dec. 31, 2021.
