Rogers OKs 2019 budget; employee salaries to increase

ROGERS — City employees’ salaries will increase by at least 2 percent next year, and a new rule will allow additional raises based on performance, the human resources director said.

The City Council approved the 2019 budget Tuesday that included 2 percent raises for all employees to account for cost of living. Employees typically receive 2 percent to 3 percent costof-living adjustments each year, Finance Director Casey Wilhelm said.

Employees will be eligible for additional raises up to 2 percent, Human Resources Director Thomas Dunlap said. No employee will receive a total raise of more than 4 percent.

The city uses software allowing department heads to see their employees’ annual performance evaluation score and give them raises based on merit, Dunlap said.

“And it gives them a lot of latitude. They just can’t

spend more than 1 percent of their total payroll,” he said.

The city staff has been studying different ways to implement a merit system of pay that isn’t just based on years of experience for about four years, Mayor Greg Hines said.

“We looked at the private sector, and corporations are getting away from written evaluations,” he said.

Hines said the software the city uses is like an “internal Facebook” allowing employees to comment on things other employees are doing throughout the year. For example, a police officer could compliment another police officer on how well he or she is directing traffic, he said.

“It creates this real-live interaction of evaluating, which is hard, because when you think about evaluations on an annual basis, we always remember the bad things that happen and we rarely remember the good things,” Hines said.

Employees must have worked for the city for at least a year to receive a raise based on merit, Dunlap said. All city departments do employee performance evaluations.

Evaluations are generally based on resident focus, dependability, integrity and ethics, treatment of others and creative problem-solving, Wilhelm said.

In 2019, the city’s general fund is expected to have more than $46.5 million in revenue and more than $46.4 million in expenses, leaving more than $155,000 left over. Overall, the city is expected to spend nearly $60.1 million and make more than $60.3 million, leaving more than $240,000 left over.

The budget includes 10 new positions, including one civilian employee in the Fire Department for $20,000 for half the year, two maintenance equipment operators in the Parks and Recreation Department for more than $58,000, two street operators in the Street Department for more than $68,000 and five police officers.

Salaries and benefits for the new police officers will cost $235,441, and the new officers’ uniforms and equipment will cost $29,220, according to the budget.

The additional officers will put the Police Department’s total number of sworn officers at 114, Chief Hayes Minor said. The department added three officers in 2017 and none in 2018.

“We evaluate our calls for service annually and look at the workload of our patrol division,” Minor said.

Police departments have a national average of 2.2 police officers per 1,000 people in the cities they serve. Rogers has about 1.8 police officers per 1,000 people, he said.

“But when you look at our call-for-service load and the type of crime that we have and our crime rate, I feel like adequately staffed,” Minor said. “But having five new officers on staff puts us in a position to go above and beyond just routine patrols. We can do some proactive things for community involvement. If we had a rash of break-ins somewhere, we’d have more staff to devote to those types of incidents.”

The City Council unanimously passed the budget with council member Barney Hayes absent.

In 2019, the city’s general fund is expected to have more than $46.5 million in revenue and more than $46.4 million in expenses, leaving more than $155,000 left over.