City Council hears a request for salary increases and for help from PACE in applying for a grant
Washington’s City Council passed ordinances that set up two new rainy-day funds to hold matching money for road repair funds authorized by the last session of the Indiana General Assembly. The City will transfer funds earmarked for road repair from the Street Department into the new funds to meet State mandated requirements.
In other business, the Council received pay request for the 2017 budget from the Fire and Police Departments. The City’s firefighters, represented by Dewayne Murphy, requested a 50 cents per hour across the board raise. Murphy also asked the Council to investigate ways to equalize the pay differentials between ranks. The City’s Police officer, represented by Case Cummings, asked for a 5% across the board increase in pay, a $50 per month cell phone allowance, and raising the cap on comp time to 80 hours. Cummings told the Council that officers must use personal cell phones in instances when radio communications are not permitted or advisable. Cummings cited instances when officers are working cases with Child Protective Services and drug enforcement among others.
The Council also heard a presentation from Greg Jones of the Southern Indiana Development Corporation. Jones told the Council that the local P.A.C.E. offices are looking at building a Child Development Center using a grant from the Office of Community and Rural Affairs. Jones said PACE currently is maxed out with 90 children in its Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Jones said a waiting list could take those numbers to 120, easily. PACE has the money to match an OCRA grant, but would need the City to be the applicant. PACE also WIC and Health Connection services. Jones said the City’s projected role would be entirely administrative with PACE furnishing all the needed funding.
Also, Monday evening the Board of Works and Safety approved six applications for the first round of this year’s sidewalk replacement program.
