The Pine Bluff City Council will consider a proposal to cap raises of city employees receiving promotions at its meeting on Monday, March 6.
The meeting takes place at 5:30 p.m. in the council chambers at Pine Bluff City Hall.
The council will also hear second readings of proposals by Go Forward Pine Bluff to hold a special election for residents to vote on a new 5/8-cent sales tax. The tax would fund economic and community development.
Additionally, the council will consider several other resolutions. One would promote Alderman Glen Brown Jr. to the Advertising and Promotion Commission. Another would authorize the Economic and Community Development Department to submit a grant to seek $21,000 to repair water damage in the Saenger Theatre. A third would authorize the mayor and city clerk to lease the Boone Murphy House for a new military and veterans museum.
Alderman Steven Mays has also resurrected two resolutions from 2014 regarding the 71602 ZIP code shared by White Hall and Pine Bluff.
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When promoted to a new classification, city employees receive a raise of one percent of their salary for each year of their employment with the city. Because the city has not increased salaries in several years, Brown said some newly promoted employees have ended up making more money than more experienced co-workers, simply because they were promoted.
To avoid that scenario, Brown’s ordinance would change the municipal code to give employees “entry level pay for the new position or his or her current pay at the time of promotion, whichever is greater.”
One of Mays’ proposals regards a resolution passed August 18, 2014, which was never enacted. The resolution “directed the city take bids from qualified surveyors to mark and describe the city’s boundary limits.” Since the resolution was never enacted, Mays’ resolution proposes narrowing its scope to establish the boundary between White Hall and Pine Bluff.
His second resolution would appoint Jack Foster, Sam Whitfield and Thelma Walker to a panel to “study the effects of the shared 71602 ZIP code.” The proposal dates to May 5, 2014, when the council passed a resolution vesting the mayor of Pine Bluff with the authority to appoint the five-member panel. Under the resolution, two of the panelists must be appointed from the fourth ward by recommendation of the two fourth ward aldermen. Aldermen Mays and Bruce Lockett represent the fourth ward.