The Common Council met 11/09/2022 and adopted the 2023 Executive Budget. They made no changes to the budget during the meeting; however, four amendments were offered all of which were voted down.
The first amendment was a proposal to reduce the aldermanic parking pass benefit budget and reallocate those funds for concrete reconstruction. It failed 12-2.
The second amendment was a proposal to reallocate the Council’s training budget to concrete reconstruction. This also failed 12-2.
The third amendment (and the focus of this post) was a proposal from Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) to decrease the 2023 across-the-board merit-based salary increase for city employees from 5% to 4% which in turn would decrease the property tax levy for Appleton residents by around 0.37%.
This amendment failed by a vote of 13-1 with only Alderperson Hartzheim voting for it.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the full discussion which you can download below.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) pointed out that, with inflation at 8.2%, even a 5% raise did not keep employees at pace with inflation. She felt that decreasing the raise by 1 percentage point would be viewed negatively by employees. She also stated that wages for city employees were $4,000 behind the average payroll in the private sector.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) noted that it was an employee market right now, not an employer market. She thought cutting the pay raise would cause the city to lose employees.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) reminded the Council that reducing the tax levy in 2023 would keep the levy lowered for years to come.
Alderperson Hartzheim understood it was an unpopular amendment and she struggled with presenting it. Although she understood why it might be viewed as taking something away, it really wasn’t because the pay raise had not been promised or given yet. The amendment would simply be giving a 4% raise. She believed that a 4% raise was on par with the raises received by Outagamie and Calumet county employees.
[Frankly, her heart didn’t seem to be in the amendment and she gave what came across as a very lackluster pitch.] She finished up by telling the Council, “I don’t have a better argument for it. Except that I do believe that we should reduce the tax levy on our employees, on our, on our taxpayers. We have to balance taxpayers benefits versus employee benefits. And I think this is a good balance. And the numbers that were presented by Alderperson Fenton in regards to whether we as a city or the employees of the city are matching the private sector didn’t at all taken into account benefits as well. So, there is that, and it’d be a long calculation that I wouldn’t ask Director Ratchman to make for us. So that’s where I stand. I would love to tell you, I have the greatest argument in the world, and gosh, you should all vote for this. But I had to search for whether I even should present it. But I do feel like it is important that we think about the taxpayers of the city as well.”
The amendment failed 13-1 with only Alderperson Hartzheim voting for it.
[For a moment, I almost thought Alderperson Hartzheim was going to vote against her own amendment given how on-the-fence she herself seemed about it. It’s hard to see how reducing the raise to 4% would not have resulted in a lot of ticked-off employees. I understand her point that 5% was not a promise, but, from an emotional standpoint, I would expect most if not all city employees would have felt like it was a decrease. Given how hard it is to find and keep employees these days, the extra 1% is probably money well spent.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1001699&GUID=79453C2A-9A80-4E2E-9871-B422793269CD
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