Iola City Councilmen Ken Rowe and Steve French used Thursday night’s town hall meeting at the middle school to gauge citizen attitude about a potential pay raise for city employees.
The two council members, who represent Iola’s Fourth Ward, said the federal government’s 3.6 percent cost of living adjustment (COLA) for employees and Social Security beneficiaries last month coupled with two years without COLA pay raises for city employees spurred “discussion about doing the same for city employees,” French said.
“If you’re currently employed (with the city) you’re probably in favor of that but let’s think broad here about the current state we’re in, your house taxes, the utilities. We have to think about where those funds are going to come from,” he said. “If the funds are there and it’s not going to cause us to raise property taxes and utilities to fund it, then we can do that.”
Rowe agreed.
“Iola has a fantastic group of employees and I would like for our employees to be the highest paid employees in the region,” he said. “But in order to do that, we need to have the revenue to do it. It’s going to have to come in the way of some type of spending cuts and obviously some type of revenue enhancements, too.”
The councilmen’s assertion that cuts and tax increases would have to come before any raises were given was received with dissent among the 28 people in attendance — some speaking out against spending cuts, others opposing tax increases.
Fourth Ward resident and Allen County Historical Society Director Jeff Kluever said any speculation of cuts to the city budget without a narrow focus are premature and reckless.
“It’s really easy to say ‘we have to cut something,’” he said. “If we don’t know where the cuts should come from then we probably don’t know that there should be a cut. I feel like the council has approached this kind of back-asswards, where you talk about what your going to cut without having the slightest idea of whether you should do it or not.”
Kleuver said the council is trying to define itself as “a cutting council.”
Rowe defended the council, saying not one single cut has been made to the city budget by the newly elected council; however, revenue increases have come.
“I think usually thought is ‘let’s just increase revenues.’ The talk of spending reductions is not the first thing we talk about,” he said. “And if the citizens of Iola want to increase spending and increase services and want to have higher taxes and higher utilities to pay for it, so be it.”
The discussion of cuts is even more imminent, Rowe said, now that City Administrator Carl Slaugh has informed the council that municipality’s expenditures are projected to be $400,000 over budget.
“Something has got to change,” Rowe said.
Iolan Ella Britt commended Rowe for being firm in his assertion change must come, but said she was upset that more people in the room didn’t support cutting the city’s budget.
“I thought that the federal and the state are cutting employees (because of dwindling revenues). Why are we any different?” she asked. “We have to learn how to cut, get along and work together.”
In a struggling economy, city employees “should be thankful they have a job” let alone demand a 3.6 percent cost of living adjustment, Britt said.
The COLA discussion will be brought up at Monday’s Iola City Council meeting at 6 p.m. at the New Community Building in Riverside Park.
Tension runs high at town hall
