Increase Wages or Salaries for City Employees

@Yvonne Schlote yes

@Yvonne Schlote , well said, I couldn’t agree more.

@Gary Stevenson, I agree, all raises should be based on performance evaluation, but should start out at competitive wages. My husband is the Superintendent gets excellent reviews, is dedicated, goes far beyond the call, honestly cares about his department succeeding, has in the short 8 months, implemented new ideas, built a new training pit, upgrading and fixing up the office and yard so people are proud to work there and genuinely cares to put the place back together again. Both of his bosses put in for him to have a 12% pay increase which was denied by personal that has no idea what my husband even does, they literally couldn’t tell you…… I agree pay raises shouldn’t be increased across the board, should be based on a performance evaluation, should start with competitive wages and shouldn’t be decided by someone who clearly has no idea what you do daily. My husband does the work of 4 men plus some, his office is down three of three Supervisors for 8 months, is still short one, has two hired in that have never worked in his department, doesn’t know the job, so has to be trained on top of his heavy work load. Is expected to go far over and beyond yet no raise, less than $80, 000 a year. It’s disgusting how dedicated workers are treated, how loyal employees are expected to do more and more and get paid less. Where is all the money going from employees that should be working these filled positions that are empty??? That’s what I want to know!!! My husband was a Supervisor, suppose to be three of them yet worked for years with just two supervisors, then that turned into a supervisor of one, himself only, for a year and a half, now a Superintendent without any supervisors for 8 months and still working without one supervisor and a staff shortage of 50. Where is their wages going because my husband can’t even get a measly 12% raise and he covers much of this deficit? If I told you his list of duties you wouldn’t even believe me. He is so stressed and continues to cover, cover, cover, but it’s getting old when they won’t even compensate you for the hard work you put in not only daily, but for 27 years, 16 hour days for years, time spent away from your family, working in the most extreme weather all hours of the day and night, missing birthdays and holidays and risking your health, no sleep, exhaustion. It’s all too much and extremely inhumane.

@Gary Stevenson This is correct. Trying to attempt resolving very simple issues with most city officials and workers in my experience is not unlike asking a four-year old to solve advanced statistics problems from memory. The utter ineptitude and fecklessness of these workers does not merit them any pay increase, but rather, they should all be required to interview to keep their job if found to have any potential, or termination (including anyone in a managerial role who continue to make pi$$-poor decisions). Even if your job sucks and is low pay, it does not mean your resulting work ethic and output needs to be remedial at best. Have some self respect. These are some of the many reasons people don’t move here and leave here.

@Erlene Tullock My performance rating was highly successful and am doing the job delegated for two staff members. I enjoy my job, and the city staff have large workloads and low pay which cause a high turnover rate.

@Gary Stevenson Good morning! I know this response is late and you might not read it, but I don't get a lot of time to check in. I felt your perspective was really important and I wanted to see if we could find some common ground. I agree that there have been many times when being a City employee was considered an easy job that didn't require much skill or effort. When I was hired to manage a team of City employees, there were four people like that. Within a year, they had chosen to retire or move on to other work because they did not want to work at the standard I set. In their defense, they were not hired with the skills they needed to excel. They spent a lot of time learning the basics before they could truly become proficient in their roles, and they felt the frustration of having to learn while already doing the job. Then they kept getting managers who knew a lot, but not what they knew, and it made them resentful. So they didn't have any reason to put in any effort. Those of us who care passionately about our work would like to change that. I went without staff and worked really hard to make it without them so I could be very intentional about who I hired. My admin assistant, a senior supervisor, and I together spent over 250 hours in 2023 trying to find the right people, and lost half of the candidates we selected because we didn't pay enough. That's a lot of time wasted when I could have been serving my community instead. Please help us change the culture so we can expect better quality work, instead of settling for the lowest bidder. The people who suffer when we hire that way are the same people who are in charge of whether I can hire the right people - I work for you, and you can help me hire people who will do a good job. You're my neighbor, and we suffer from the same things. I want a better City for all of us.

@Tim Shillito I could not agree more about investing in better security (for everyone). If St. Louis was the safest place in the region, we would not be reduced to figuring out how to legally bribe people to do things that don't make economic sense. With safety and security, houses would be built, ports would be improved, etc. The hope would be to arrest and reverse the decline in population, which would increase revenues, and maybe allow us to ditch the earnings tax altogether. The big problem is: safety and security did not make it to the final six. How could THAT happen?!