Morgan City leaders up for pay hike

Two percent pay raises for Morgan City’s mayor and city council top the Dec. 13 city council agenda.

If approved, the pay hikes would not go into effect until January 2013, when a new city council and mayor are seated.

The move comes nearly a year after city leaders opted to cut employees’ pay 2 percent to offset budget woes. Workers’ pay levels were restored over the summer after Morgan City leaders reported a $400,000 budget surplus, however, the pay was not given retroactively.

As of press time, the agenda did not include a measure to award city employees a cost-of-living pay hike.

The proposed ordinance would increase the mayor’s annual salary from $54,000 to $63,000. Also among the mayor’s benefits are paid health care and a vehicle allowance.

Council members’ pay would increase from $600 monthly, or $7,200 yearly, to $1,000 monthly, or $12,000 annually.

The current mayor, Tim Matte, and several councilmen are term-limited by the city’s Home Rule Charter. They will not be included in the pay raise.

Matte, who proposed the raises, said the new figures closer match other mid-sized cities’ pay to government leaders.

Thibodaux, for example, pays its mayor $82,400 and council members $12,700 yearly. Similarly, Sulphur pays $80,000 to its mayor and $4,200 to councilmen; Hammond, $75,000 to the mayor and $12,000 to the council; Natchitoches, $81,620 to its mayor and $7,800 to its council; Abbeville, $61,846 to the mayor and $14,215 to its council; and West Monroe, $85,000 to the mayor and $10,800 to councilmen.

Matte said none of these cities offer cost-of-living increases.

According to Matte, Morgan City last increased the mayor’s salary in 2003. The council’s pay was last increased in 1987 when the city charter was adopted.

Morgan City’s budget shortfall last year was caused by the rising cost of retirement and hospitalization for city police and firemen required money be redirected, leaving the city’s 251 workers without a pay raise. First-responders’ retirement expenses for 2011 exceeded the previous year’s rates by approximately $247,000, while hospitalization costs were more than $145,000 higher.

“This created the challenge of funding the current staff at existing levels without any additional revenue to cover these increasing costs,” Matte said.

By eliminating the 2 percent cost-of-living increase for staffers, Matte said the city saved an estimated $150,000.

The temporary cut earlier this year to workers pay generated approximately $130,000.

Councilman Larry Bergeron, who was a city worker for more than 20 years, said cost-of-living raises have always been contingent upon the health of the budget and are not automatically awarded.

Voters approved a three-tenths of a percent sales tax for road repairs and maintenance, allowing the administration to redistribute revenues in the city’s general fund. The move should ease budget shortfalls, Matte said.