Raise OK'd for city employees

Hiring good workers for the City of Holton and paying them enough to keep them on staff remains a priority for the Holton City Commission, which recently approved a five-percent across-the-board pay increase for city employees.

During the commission’s Tuesday, Jan. 20 meeting — held a day later than usual due to the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday holiday on its regular meeting date — commissioners voted 4-1 to approve the five-percent increase in base pay for permanent full-time city employees, with commissioner Clara Lovvorn voting in opposition.

Commissioners also unanimously approved a 30-cents-per-hour raise for the city’s two permanent part-time employees and a five-percent flat pay increase for themselves ($3,181.54 annually) and the city attorney ($20,489.88), city treasurer ($9,952.32), fire chief ($4,853.31), animal control officer (estimated at $9,907.20) and municipal court judge ($12,744.60), as well as the Public Wholesale Water Supply District 18 general manager ($17,872.92) and operations manager ($16,669.80), which equates to a $4,892 increase in city wages.

Holton City Manager Teresa Riley had prepared a 2.8-percent cost-of-living increase in pay for permanent full-time employees, which would result in an hourly wage increase of about 76 cents for those workers, or $71,202.16 per year for the city. That increase was based on the 2025 annual rate of inflation, or 2.8 percent, Riley said.

Riley also proposed a four-percent pay increase that would give city workers a raise of about $1.09 per hour at a cost of $101,717.37 for the city. The city’s budget for fiscal year 2026 included room for a cost-of-living increase of up to seven percent, or $260,863 for the city, including all employees and any overtime pay they might earn, she noted.

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