Despite impassioned pleas to the Metro Council at its Tuesday night budget meeting, employees with the Department of Public Works will not be receiving additional pay raises in 2012. But the agency’s director says that the approved budget will save their jobs and improve prospects in 2013.
On Tuesday, several workers with DPW stated their cases before the council. Joshua Williams, a four-year DPW employee, said he knows “people who have been working for the city for 20-plus years who have second jobs just to provide for their families.”
Herman Addison, an 11-year employee, said he didn’t understand why the city issued a $450,000 contract for cutting grass when DPW workers are tasked with the same duty.
“I’m blessed to have a job. But still, I’m complaining because I know a lot can be done that isn’t being done,” Addison said.
DPW director William Daniel says the department is making the best of a bad situation.
“I understand the frustrations of workers not getting regular raises,” he says. “But the mayor’s goal and my goal is to preserve jobs.”
Daniel says the agency submitted essentially the same budget as 2011, though the figure is “up a little” to account for benefit hikes.
“We presented our budget to the council two weeks ago. It remained intact,” he says. “We appreciate the council’s consideration of it. We’re 24% down on employees already, so any cuts would have been devastating.”
Employees will still continue to receive 3% merit raises. DPW, Daniel says, is aiming to be more efficient in the coming year.
“If we’re able to do that, I’ll go to the mayor and say, ‘I’d like to pass the cost savings onto our employees,'” he says. “It depends on how the economy rebounds.”
