The Kenai City Council failed to pass an ordinance that would authorize a one-time premium payment to eligible employees. The premium payment would be to all employees in the Classified Service and Department Head Service in the amount of $2,000 that’s aimed to help offset some of the additional costs that they have been experiencing over the past six months, and additionally, ensures the City can maintain an effective workforce by acknowledging the extraordinary circumstances and commitment to the city over the past 22 months. The ordinance was sponsored by Vice Mayor Jim Glendening and Council Members Teea Winger and Deborah Sounart.
Finance Director Terry Eubank told council:
“It’s really a program designed to keep people from getting shut off or people that are currently shut off to get them back into service. So it does have provisions for paying arrearages on people’s accounts.
The ordinance that would provide additional compensation to city employees to address extraordinary inflationary pressures was met with mixed opinions by members of the public and the city council.
Mayor Brian Gabriel said:
“This is a discussion. I’m not opposed to this in the sense that yeah, they probably deserve a bonus of this type. I was a little conflated a little bit with the sort of first responder and then tying it to inflation, but at the end of the day, I think, for me it comes down to this is budgetary. It’s $255,000. Almost $256,000 that would be probably more appropriately fleshed out during the budget process, which we will be having a budget work session, we generally do around April, the beginning to the middle of April. For me this is a budgetary discussion. I think that’s the venue in which it should happen.”
According to corresponding documents, the city is experiencing staffing shortages and challenges, and rising inflation likely will warrant compensation increases in the next fiscal year. Administration felt it was appropriate to consider an adjustment to compensation in the current fiscal year through a one-time adjustment to all eligible city employees. The reasoning for the premium payment is that so many of city’s employees have to continue working from home doing critical work that keeps the city running.
The final vote on the ordinance that failed to enact was 3 yeas and 3 nays.