The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Spokesman claims pay hikes are city policy

Public services unions outraged about increases in face of deficit.

Dayton officials defend nearly $300,000 in pay hikes for managers, executives

Victim of human trafficking speaks to students
Updated 9 min. ago
‘App economy’ job prospects booming
10:05 a.m.
Bullying law brings rule changes
10:04 a.m.
GE to hire 5,000 veterans, add 400 new manufacturing jobs
9:37 a.m.
Kasich wants 100 gigabits per second state network, smarter smartphones
9:31 a.m.
> More headlines

By Joanne Huist Smith, Staff Writer 12:12 AM Tuesday, October 27, 2009

City of Dayton union officials say their anger over pay increases for city managers isn’t about the money.

“It’s about people making concessions, doing the right thing in confidence and expecting the city also would do the right thing,” said Mike Fasnacht, president of the firefighters union.

The city gave 379 managers pay increases this year totaling $292,350. city spokesman Tom Biedenharn said the raises, which average 1.19 percent, were the equivalent of step increases the city’s union-represented employees receive.

Fasnacht noted the raises were made even though the city faces a budget deficit.

He said firefighters made budget concessions to prevent layoffs, to keep fire apparatus in service, and to prevent demotion of 11 district chiefs. City officials, faced now with a $17 million to $20 million projected deficit for 2010, are again talking about taking vehicles out of service, Fasnacht said.

“If they want to give themselves a pay raise, that puts less apparatus on the street,” Fasnacht said.

The fire union, Dayton Public Service Union and the Dayton Building Trades Council all agreed to forego three percent raises for 2009, and they either gave up some holiday pay or agreed to take four furlough days without pay.

“I think (city leaders) lost focus when they made these decisions,” Fasnacht said. “This is about truthfulness.”

On Nov. 3, representatives of the police union and city leaders meet for a conciliation hearing to determine what, if any, raise police officers will receive this year.

Randy Beane, head of the city’s police union, echoed Fasnacht. Beane said news of the increases came out during fact-finding after former City Manager Rashad Young re-opened contract negotiations.

Biedenharn said it is the city’s policy to give nonbargaining unit employees compensation similar to what union members receive. Of all 1,578 city employees represented by a bargaining unit, 446 got step increases totaling $762,958, city records show. All 379 managers got the “step equivalent” raises, including several on the job since the early 1980s.

Biedenharn said this policy was set by former City Manager Jim Dinneen around 2004, but he could not produce a public record to document the policy.

Fasnacht produced a copy of a city personnel policy statement from July 2008 that said managers and executives are only eligible for merit increases.

“There are no designated steps in the salary ranges of executive, management and mid-management group employees,” according to the policy statement.

Employees in these management positions often came out of union ranks. As managers, they were no longer eligible for union-negotiated step increases, so some of their subordinates were earning more than them. This gave managers no incentive to stay in a supervisory positions, Biedenharn said.

“We came up with a new system,” Biedenharn said.

Mangers receive smaller percentage step-equivalent increases over longer periods of time than union employees before they reach the limit of their pay level, Biedenharn said.

Share this article