SHAMOKIN - City Councilman William Milbrand said his vote to pass the 2013 preliminary budget doesn't mean he supports a $9,350 raise for the city clerk.
Council on Nov. 12 voted 3-1 to OK the $2.5 million spending plan that includes a 21 percent raise for Steve Bartos. But Milbrand said including the pay raise in the budget vote doesn't make it official. Raises for any employee not under a union contract would take a separate vote by council, he said.
Besides, Milbrand said, the preliminary budget could change before a final version is voted on next month.
"When I took that vote, I voted for a balanced budget," Milbrand said Monday.
He did so to move the process forward, but added, "I will not vote for a $9,000 raise. I will vote for some, but not $9,000."
Milbrand, Councilman William Strausser and Mayor George Rozinskie Jr. voted in favor of the preliminary budget. Councilman R. Craig Rhoades dissented, citing Bartos' raise. Councilman Michael Snyder was absent.
Comparing salaries
The increase for Bartos, if approved, it would bring his salary to $45,400, which includes a $400 stipend.
For comparison, Rob Slaby, secretary of neighboring Coal Township, is set to earn $43,920 in 2012. Theresa A. Specht, Sunbury city clerk, has a salary of $42,685 in 2012. A 2012 budget for Mount Carmel shows the salary for borough secretary, a managerial position held by Ed Cuff III, is $30,000.
Like Shamokin, Sunbury is a Third Class City, though its population is larger - 10,000 residents compared to Shamokin's 7,400 - and it has a budget that exceeds $4 million.
Coal Township has a population that's larger than both at 10,300 residents. It's 2012 budget was $2.8 million.
Mount Carmel is a borough with a smaller population, 5,900 residents, and a smaller budget than the others at $1.6 million.
Grant fees help
Bartos has cited job performance as a reason for his requested increase.
When he took the clerk's job in May 2011, some officials feared bankruptcy. That didn't happen, though the financial situation is tenuous at times.
Bartos has said that changes in insurance providers, an increased fee for the television cable franchise and reduced electricity costs, among other maneuvers, saved the city upwards of $500,000 in 2011.
Also, the budget decreased in 2012 and appears on track to possibly do so again in 2013.
This year, the city was awarded nearly $2.1 million in federal grant money, all of it coming in the wake of the disastrous flooding of September 2011, including nearly $1.8 million to repair the Shamokin Creek channel.
Each grant has a 3 percent administrative fee, he said, which is used for employees' salaries and benefits, and presumably overhead.
Those fees will total approximately $60,000, he said, and would more than cover his requested increase for 2013. It cannot, Bartos said, be used on general spending unrelated to the grant.
There are separate grants pending, Bartos said - $1.5 million for renovations at the American Legion Building and an additional $1 million for the creek channel project - that would net additional administrative fees.
Clearing the air
Strausser and Rozinskie each previously said they supported the pay raise, citing Bartos' job performance and saying the projected salary fell in line with that of past city clerks.
Rhoades, too, had said Bartos has done well at City Hall. He said he'd be more comfortable with a gradual pay raise.
Milbrand wasn't sought for comment after the Nov. 12 meeting at which the preliminary budget was passed.
He reached out to The News-Item this week, not to "cry over spilled milk" because of any public backlash over the pay request, but in response to an editorial published in Sunday's News-Item. The editorial criticized approval of the large raise, suggesting instead the $9,350 be awarded over two or three years, and that it was too high considering the city will again ask the court for approval to raise its tax millage above what's allowed by the Third Class City Code, an option for "fiscally distressed" municipalities.
Like the others, Milbrand also credited Bartos for a job well done in the clerk's office. He does not, however, support the requested pay raise.