Pleasant Surprise

Surplus could be good news for city staff

By Richard Davis

TFW Staff Writer

Whadda ya know? Hard work and being a team player can pay off.

With a bit of good luck and some impressive cost-cutting efforts on the part of staff, the city of Fayetteville swung from a projected $1 million shortfall to a $1.1 million surplus. Because of that, Mayor Lioneld Jordan is asking aldermen to give permanent full- and part-time city employees a one-time $500 bonus. In addition, some employees will get merit raises based on 2009 performance reviews. Because of the pay freeze implemented in 2009, workers with July to December anniversary dates didn’t get a chance at the raises their January to June counterparts did.

It’s not a lifting of the pay freeze — more of a reset button to bring those city workers back closer to zero. Torpedoing the pay freeze would take further council action, something the current administration has no plans to ask for until Fayetteville starts showing steady revenue growth again, said Don Marr, the mayor’s chief of staff, at the city council agenda session Tuesday, March 8.

The bonuses will cost the city about $320,00. The wage bumps will add $67,000 for this year and $140,000. Special thanks to city finance director Paul Becker for those numbers.

The council will meet for real at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 15 in the City Administration Building.

In other action (and I do mean action):

The agenda session got to rockin’ — rockabilly style — when a smart phone went off during the meeting and stubbornly refused to shut off. For a good 20 or 30 seconds, the meeting was actually entertaining until the mule-headed gizmo was finally tamed. Later, before leaving, the gentleman offender was good enough to ’fess up before the council and apologized for the distraction.