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City approves 2015-16 budget
Plan totals more than $8 million
budget

The Smithville city council voted to approve an $8 million budget plan for 2015-16 on second reading Monday night.

 

After some aldermen voiced concerns that police raises under the seven-step pay scale were placing their salaries well above other employees of the city, some members of the board were ready to do away with three steps of the pay scale before pasing a spending plan.

 

The new budget was finally adopted on a 3-2 vote, with the seven-step wage scale has been retained for at least one more year. Aldermen Josh Miller and Shawn Jacobs voted against the plan, citing other parts of the budget that concerned them.

 

City police officers who were past the fourth step would have gotten a two-percent cost of living raise, the same as all other hourly employees, rather than advancing to the next step in the wage scale under the proposal. After the changes to the pay scale were suggested at a workshop last week, however, some police officers began to voice their disapproval, and some attended the Monday meeting to be heard.

 

Officer James Cornelius told the mayor and aldermen that he felt that employees of the department deserved more notice of a change in the pay scale. He said that he and many other officers were counting on the scheduled raises, and that he felt it should be put off to give them more time to adjust.

 

Captain Steven Leffew told the board that the officers understood and respected the decisions the aldermen faced, but that the goal of the step-raise system was to retain police