Mr. Answer Person answers more of your city salary questions

(The questions continue to come in to Mr. Answer Person about the $18,000 pay raise approved by the Decorah City Council for Decorah City Administrator Chad Bird)

"Does this (pay raise) equal the percentage (pay raise) that the employees received from the city?"

Mr. Answer Person says: "City employees represented by AFSME got a 2.25 percent pay raise for 2016-2017, a 2.25 percent pay raise for 2017-2018 and a 2.50 percent pay raise for 2018-2019.  These are considered 'cost of living' pay raises.  It's also possible for city employees to get additional raises by qualifying for a higher step on the city's payroll schedule. 

Samantha asks, "I have a simple question for you--What does the city manager do?"

Actually, there's a simple answer to your simple question--the City Manager supervises and directs the administration of city government.

As you might imagine, there's a written job description of the position.  You can read it by clicking on the .pdf link.

"Did the city council say what justifies such a huge (almost 20 percent) pay increase?"

Mr. Answer Person tackled this question earlier (http://www.decorahnews.com/news-stories/2016/04/13468.html) and stands by his response written then--except for one correction: the agenda item for the City Manager's pay raise was added to the City Council agenda Friday afternoon, not Monday afternoon.

Won't every other city employee be asking for a big pay raise now?

The pay raise given to City Manager Chad Bird came because city council members thought his salary should be similar to the salary paid to Waverly's new City Manager.  If city council members can show the salaries of other city employees are equivalent to those being paid in Waverly and similar communities, they can argue that no adjustments are needed.  Of course, that information hasn't been gathered yet.  The city's Personnel Committee has begun the process of getting that information, but it approved the pay raise for Bird without knowing whether other city department heads deserve 19 percent pay raises.

If city council members learn that other department heads have salaries lower than those in Waverly and similar Iowa communities, the pressure for another round of big raises will begin.