City employees to receive pay raise
Holton’s full-time city employees will receive a six-percent across-the-board pay increase for 2022, in line with what the Holton City Commission budgeted for the current year as a cost-of-living allowance, as well as a $10,000 increase in their default life insurance plan, which is paid for by the city.
During the commission’s regular meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 18 — held a day later than usual due to the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday observance the day before — commissioners approved the six-percent pay increase, a raise of $1.51 per hour for the city’s full-time employees, as well as a five-percent pay increase for part-time employees.
Commissioners also voted to increase the life insurance contract from $20,000 — a coverage amount in place since 1986, it was noted — to $30,000 after tabling the matter at their Jan. 3 meeting.
In discussions for the 2022 budget held last summer, commissioners had included a six-percent cost-of-living increase for full-time workers, which Holton City Manager Kerwin McKee said would make up the largest part of a payroll increase of $141,144.02 for the current year if the commission approved the six-percent raise.
McKee had given commissioners pay raise options of three percent (totaling $70,572.01) and five percent (totaling $117,620.02) for full-time workers, but commissioners opted for the full six percent after McKee reported that inflation had gone up seven percent in the past year — the highest inflation increase since 1982, he said.
“We budgeted for six percent,” Commissioner Mike Meerpohl said. “So I wouldn’t be against giving them six percent.”
Commissioner Eric Bjelland agreed, noting that while he didn’t “feel comfortable at all” giving employees a raise that didn’t match the inflation rate, he noted that “there’s an increase across the board for everybody.” McKee also noted that in previous years, cost-of-living pay raises exceeded the inflation rate.
City Clerk Teresa Riley said the six-percent increase for full-time employees would not pose a budgetary hardship for the city, since a 15-percent increase in health insurance premiums for city employees had been budgeted for 2022, but the increase for those premiums went up only about two percent from last year, as commissioners noted at the Jan. 3 meeting.
Pay raises amounting to five percent were also granted to “permanent part-time employees,” an amount that McKee said raised the hourly rate for such employees — all one of them, he noted — by 50 cents per hour.
A five-percent flat raise, which McKee said amounted to about $3,701, applied to city positions that receive a flat monthly fee, including the commissioners, the city attorney, the city treasurer, fire chief, animal control officer, municipal judge and Public Wholesale Water Supply District 18’s general manager and operations manager.
Commissioners also approved increasing the life insurance coverage rate from $20,000 to $30,000, an amount that McKee said would cost the city $4,536 annually, depending on the number of city employees. The city had been paying $3,024 annually on average for the $20,000 life insurance policy, it was noted.
The matter had been tabled from the Jan. 3 meeting after commissioners questioned a suggestion from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Kansas to raise the coverage rate from $20,000 to $50,000, which would raise what the city pays for employee policies to $7,290 annually, again depending on how many are employed by the city.
After being presented with a list of life insurance policies that other area cities carry for their employees, Bjelland noted that “some of these other places are at $30,000,” and Commissioner Tim Morris recommended increasing the coverage rate by at least that much.
