Small raises given to some in Decatur

— Rising health insurance costs left Decatur city employees without annual raises this year, but some city employees will still get a small raise after all, thanks to an extra $5,000 found in the city’s budget.

Decatur city council members held a short special meeting on Dec. 20 to amend the budget to give all employees- except those in the police department - a 1.6 percent raise.

Decatur Mayor Charles Linam explained that he received an email from Judge Jeff Conner, lowering the Benton County Court West expenses by $5,000.

“We used that to raise everybody’s salaries a little bit,” he said.

City council members David Sutton, Kim Goble, Nan Mc-Clain and Sandy Duncan votedin favor of the amended budget. Council members James Jessen and Robin Heath were not present.

In the past, Decatur employees have received around a 3 percent raise each year, but due to increases in the cost of health insurance, a raise was not possible this year, Linam explained when the council passed the original budget on Dec. 11.

Linam explained that police did not receive a raise because they got a 20 percent increase in retirement benefits last year. If the police salaries were raised by 1.6 percent along with the other employees,it would cost a total of $7,000. If everyone had been given raises and the city had kept the cost under $5,000, the employees would have received less than one percent, Linam said.

“I guaranteed Terry (Police Chief Terry Luker), it wasn’t in retaliation at all. It was simply the numbers in the budget,” he said.

News, Pages 1 on 12/26/2012