Florence town employees to receive mid-year raise
by Mark Cowling | Florence Reminder & Blade Tribune
Despite a new town budget that’s already almost $1.5 million in the red, the Town Council voted Monday to offer a 2.5% raise to town employees in January, halfway through the new budget year, at a cost of $134,713.
Technically the raise moves all employees up one step; the difference between each step in the town’s scale is 2.5%, Town Manager Brent Billingsley said. The town was already planning to give substantial raises to police dispatchers and wastewater plant operators, two jobs that have been difficult to fill, and the fleet supervisor, so these positions will not receive this step raise as well.
Town staff presented a tentative budget to the council on May 26 that originally included no other pay increases. A town staff report to the council noted “many challenges” ahead including lawsuits, fewer new housing starts and the anticipated loss of inmate population if the state proceeds with closing Arizona State Prison-Florence Complex.
