Council Considers Pay Hike for City Workers

The City Council meets tonight to consider a plan to boost the salaries of city employees by 2% a year for the next four years.

The raises cover cost-of-living increases, said Steve Klotzsche, director of administrative services.

The plan also calls for improvements in the way city officials calculate retirement pensions and in rules that govern which city employees receive a bonus after 10 years of service, he said.

Employees currently get a bonus only if they work for 10 years at the same position. “Only people that never get promoted get it,” said Klotzsche.

The council has an opportunity to make bonuses effective 10 years from employment, he said, no matter what city jobs an employee might hold thereafter.

In other business, the council will consider joining a study to determine if Los Angeles County should divide into two or more smaller counties.

“It’s a good idea to study this,” Mayor Raul Godinez II said. “You have more population in Los Angeles County than in 42 other states.”

A state bill passed last year paved the way for communities so inclined to form a Los Angeles County Division Commission and evaluate the efficiency of service delivery in the county. The commission is still forming.

Also, Councilman Doude Wysbeek said he wants the city to pass a resolution in support of various efforts to ease statewide regulation of milk prices and adopt a rule stating that city water will not be shut off to any customer, regardless of his or her failure to pay water bills, when temperatures top 100 degrees.

The council meets at 7 p.m. on the first and third Monday of each month at 117 Macneil St.