OBSERVING INDEPENDENCE DAYSoddy-Daisy City Manager Hardie Stulce announced that Soddy-Daisy’s annual Fourth of July event will be July 3. Residents are welcome to camp on the lake, but Stulce requests that residents tell him if they plan to camp or not, so he can get a count. The time to pack up and go home for campers voted on by the Commission will be 3 p.m. on Sunday, July 4. The event will be patrolled.
Soddy-Daisy commissioners will vote for final approval of the city’s $7.2 million budget June 24 at 7 p.m. following last week’s passage on first reading of the draft which once again does not provide raises for city employees.
Two employee pay raise measures failed to gain enough votes last week, one that would have provided a $1 per hour raise and another that would have provided 50 cent per hour increases.
“We need to deal with raises before we set the budget,” said Soddy-Daisy Commissioner Jim Adams. “I think we ought to give a raise this year to our employees. They did not get one last year.”
Adams made a motion that 44 city employees should receive $1 per hour raises with the exception of the city manager, city recorder, public works director and police chief due to higher pay scales. The motion would have been an increase of $109,090.
Commissioner Shane Harmon joined Adams in voting for the raise, but Vice Mayor Bob Privett, Commissioner David Skiles and Mayor Geno Shipley voted no.
On the option of giving raises to non-exempt employees for 50 cents per hour across the board, which would have totaled $56,646, Harmon abstained as Adams and Shipley voted yes and Skiles and Privett voted no.
“I got a print out of county employees,” said Skiles. “We are $2.50 hirer in our wages than Hamilton County now. We have businesses going out of business. We are coming to either raising taxes or layoffs, so that’s why I vote no.”
City Manager Hardie Stulce Stulce said that the city employs people who are multi-talented and able to perform numerous skills.
“To address those of you that think we get paid enough, I don’t think our employees are overpaid,” said Stulce. “You get what you pay for.”
Soddy-Daisy resident Ronnie McNew said he likes all city employees and thinks they do a good job, but thinks they get paid well for what they do already.
“I’m a business person,” said McNew. “I pay an enormous amount of property taxes. I try to put back into the city and make it better for employees. Poll the employees at Soddy-Daisy’s Walmart and Bi-lo and see how much more of a raise they get to pay their taxes with. Where does it stop? Are we not going to put a cap on it? Buildings are vacant and businesses are closing down.”
Soddy-Daisy resident Margaret Chastain said that if every employee had been given a $1 per hour raise, then the 2010-2011 budget would still be about $36,000 less than the 2009-2010 budget total. Chastain said she would like the board to rethink its decision and give the employees a raise at the second budget hearing.