2.2% pay increases approved in NLR

City workers and elected officials in North Little Rock will be getting 2.2 percent pay increases starting Aug. 11, which were approved Monday evening by the City Council.

The raises will cost the city $299,861, city Finance Director Karen Scott said last week, an additional expense to the city’s general fund.

The raises cover elected officials Mayor Joe Smith, City Attorney Amy Fields, City Clerk-Treasurer Diane Whitbey, the City Council members, full-time salaried employees, Fire Department employees, grade-step nonuniformed employees and Police Chief Mike Davis.

Uniformed police personnel were excluded because they received raises at the beginning of the year as part of their union negotiations.

Smith said during budget discussions last fall that he wouldn’t include cost-of-living raises for city employees in this year’s budget because the city was expecting a midyear, $400,000 increase in employee health insurance costs. When that cost increase didn’t materialize this month, he proposed adding the raises to the budget.

City employees last received raises in 2016 and 2017. Those pay increases were funded from a portion of $2.5 million and $4.2 million transferred from city reserves to balance the budget in those years.

The new pay increases and budget adjustments were spread over five resolutions, with each approved by a vote of 7-0, except the legislation covering elected officials. Council member Maurice Taylor was absent.

City Council member Charlie Hight voted against the resolution that included a pay increase for council members and the elected

officials. He explained that it made him “feel uncomfortable,” and that he had friends who had complained about it to him that morning. Council member Linda Robinson gave a long pause before she voted yes.

Council members are paid $10,821 annually and receive a monthly $250 vehicle allowance. The three full-time elected officials’ current salaries are: Smith, $122,400; Fields, $103,974; and Whitbey, $72,420.

“I’m not opposed to salary increases for elected officials,” Hight said. “I am uncomfortable for raises for City Council members, including for myself.”

Hight said he thought the pay increase comes at a bad time, citing the added 1 percent city sales tax North Little Rock voters approved in August, an adjustment to city electric rates and a one-half percentage point increase in the city’s lodging tax, all raising more revenue to the city.

“It seems the message we’re sending out is that we’re getting salary increases because of all of this increased revenue,” Hight said. “It makes me feel uncomfortable. I’ll be voting no, not on the whole thing, but for half of it.”