Proposed budget gives city employees 2 percent raise

The final draft of Fairfield?s 2011-12 fiscal year budget will include a 2 percent pay increase for city employees. The Fairfield City Council Ways and Means Committee now sends the budget to a Feb. 28 public hearing and a March 14 city council approval date.

The committee had been considering a 3 percent pay raise to help offset a 6.46 percent increase in employee health insurance costs and last year?s pay freeze.

?Everything I see in the newspapers is 1 to 1.5 percent wage increases at the public level,? said city councilman Myron Gookin. ?I understand it was frozen last year. I think 2 percent is fair. Plenty of people aren?t getting any kind of a raise.?

City administrator Jeff Clawson said every additional percentage point allotted to salaries in the budget costs the city an additional $25,000. He added the total bill for health coverage for city employees is about $470,000, with the city paying about $350,000 and employee contributions totaling $120,000.

The numbers break down to an approximate split of 75 percent for the city and 25 percent for employees. The city pays a static $335 monthly for employees? single coverage and $670 for families. Rate increases in health coverage are passed on to city employees. Clawson said the total cost of the 2011-12 increase was more than $28,000.

The city retains a health insurance reserve fund of $225,000 that partially self-funds a portion of employees? deductible payments. The initial plan for the 3 percent increase was to totally offset the health insurance increase to employees with the raise and reserve funds.

For the complete article, see the Friday, Feb. 11, 2011, printed edition of The Fairfield Ledger.