photo by: Emma Delk

Moundsville City Manager Rick Healy reviews a report during an Employee Recruitment and Retention Committee meeting on Monday.

The Moundsville City Council Employee Recruitment and Retention Committee does not recommend that the city council use revenue from the 1% municipal sales and use tax to fund pay increases for employees to offset increased employee health insurance costs.

The retention committee discussed a possible employee pay increase during its meeting on Monday in response to the Moundsville Finance Subcommittee’s recommendation to increase city employee salaries using sales tax revenue during their meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12.

The retention committee consists of council members Judy Hunt and Randy Chamberlain, City Manager Rick Healy, City Administrative Secretary Sara Jasenec and all city department heads. Chamberlain subbed in as committee chair for Hunt, who was absent, to preside over the meeting.

Chamberlain said the finance subcommittee recommended the pay increase due to the change in employee insurance that will take effect next year, as the deductible employees will pay will increase.

Healy outlined that employees had to pay “some type of premium” or raise their deductible so that the city could get its insurance costs “down to an acceptable level.”

The city’s insurance costs “were still higher than what we budgeted, but considerably less than what we should have had,” Healy said. “We heard from most employees that they don’t want to change our insurance and want to keep The Health Plan. We were able to do that, but we had to put a little bit more on the employees to pay.”

Healy said he had not heard “one complaint” regarding employees having to pay the increased deductible. He noted council member Ginger DeWitt, who began the discussion regarding using sales tax funds to increase employee salaries, had reported hearing “some complaints” from city employees.

Healy added that city employees saw about “half of the pay increases” they would have liked to have seen due to the deductible while still having an overall salary increase.

Chamberlain said he believed sales tax revenue should be kept available for funding “one-time expenditures” for the city, such as the city building project. He recommended that the city look to general revenue streams instead to meet employees’ salary and benefit needs.

“If we can do it that way, getting into the 1% (funds) is nothing I favor, but I’m open to hearing any ideas or suggestions,” Chamberlain said.

Healy concurred with Chamberlain that salary increases and benefit payments for employees should be paid from the general fund.

Moundsville Police Department Chief Tom Mitchell voiced his concern that it was “difficult” to recruit and retain staff when they were competing against other local police departments on what benefits they offered.

“It’s hard to draw people here because we have sheets of what other people make [at other local police departments] and their basic deals,” Mitchell said. “It’s great that we have the money to purchase cruisers with cash, but we also need to be able to pay a competitive wage and have a good benefits package, which includes insurance in our modern era.”

Mitchell added that while he believed a “great job” had been done so far using money from the 1% Funds to fix the city’s streets and roads, he believed employees needed to be “a priority at some point.” He suggested other ways to offset medical insurance costs for employees should be considered, including possibly using opioid settlement funding.

“Not that we’re not [a priority], but we need to be more of one so we can draw people in,” Mitchell said.

Chamberlain said that while it appeared he, Healy and “most of the council” were on the same page regarding “not wanting to get into the 1% Funds,” he believed the council could take a closer look to understand what department heads and employees were “dealing with” recruitment and retention-wise due to the deductible increase.