12 City Council (09/08/03) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular City Council Meeting September 8, 2003 Page 12 to put more in retirement, but take a lesser contribution from that standpoint. Mr. Anderson states that from an employee standpoint it would not be a good thing. Donna Bolt, 2620 Ridgeview, came forward, stating that she was a Paramedic for the Paris EMS for 15 years, and she was able to speak with several Council Members. Her concern was that she is older than most of the employees that are here tonight and she is going to be looking at retirement and she wanted to keep her retirement. Ms. Bolt said one of the considerations last year when they were talking about raising salaries or adding people was the cutting personnel in other departments, and the city employees said at that time, they would rather take no raise than have any one person lose their job because of that raise that the others could get. She stated that they still feel that way today as long as things are kept fair and equal, they can all live with it. Ms. Bolt said they would rather keep the benefits as they are and receive the minimum raise that the Council could give the employees in order to keep the budget balanced and make those changes they need to make, but please leave the retirement and benefits the way they are and keep the personnel in place. They just wanted everything equal and fair across the board for every employee of this city. No one else appeared and the public hearing was closed. Mayor Fendley advised that the next item on the agenda was to consider, discuss, and take possible action on amendments on the 2003-2004 budget. Mayor Fendley said he thought that all of the Council had received a copy of Mr. Anderson's summary on where they were on cuts or changes that have been proposed at the prior meetings. Mayor Fendley pointed out that the utility issue was left out or in limbo. Mr. Campbell was going to look at that and Mr. Campbell is out of town. Mayor Fendley said that what the bottom line is that is only a$150,000.00 savings. Mr. Anderson came forward, telling the Council that it is not on his list because they did not actually vote on this issue. He advised that the Council was going to wait until they received information about it before they made a decision on how much to reduce that.