By Andrew Walsh
awalsh@wbcowqel.com
A special meeting of the Galion City Council was held Monday night to proceed with work on the government wage structure. The reason for the special meeting is that the City is up against a deadline for getting this legislation completed. Members of the government are not allowed to vote on the wages for the current term, and the legislation needed to be completed before the filing deadline for this November’s election.
At the previous meeting, Council had decided to keep the wages the same, and approved the legislation to simply extend the wage structure in place past the current December 31, 2013 deadline. At the special meeting, Councilman Andy Daniels made a motion to amend the legislation to provide raises to the mayor and auditor. Daniels’ motion was to raise the mayor’s salary from $19,290 to $30,000, and the auditor’s from $38,000 to $39,902.
Daniels said his motion was born out of further research into the salaries for these positions in similarly sized communities. He looked at towns around Ohio that were plus or minus 1,000 people from Galion’s population. The $39,902 number was the lowest salary he found for auditors in this category. The mayor’s salary had a much larger range, going from $1,000 in Strothers, Ohio to $54,000 in Coshocton, Ohio.
“I think $19,290 is too low,” Daniels said.
The most vocal opponent was Councilman Matt Strickler. “I don’t think we need to touch the mayor’s salary,” Strickler said.
Jon Kleinknecht joined him in the opposition camp stating, “I wouldn’t have a problem increasing the auditor’s salary but we need to leave the mayor’s alone.”
Tom Fellner, who proposed the initial raise to $38,000, was not in attendance at the meeting, but Councilwoman Missy Harris was in favor of the raise. She pointed out that a hypothetical mayor with a family of three making $19,290 would still be eligible for food stamps.
The motion to amend the legislation passed four to two, with Strickler and Kleinknecht voting against, and the subsequent vote on the legislation itself passed by the same vote. Council did not suspend the rules for it to take immediate effect, so there will be another vote on the issue.
Two other pieces of legislation were passed. One was to set the wage structure for council passed the December 31, 2013 deadline, and the other was to set appropriations in wake of the structural reorganization.