07 City Council (04-12-04) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular City Council Meeting April 12, 2004 Page 12 Mr. Anderson said that in essence the change was they wanted a financial report that looked more like a business financial report opposed to the traditional government report. After discussing the audit, Councilman Bell requested that a regular reoccurring agenda item be placed on each agenda for the next few months to discuss the audit as the City Council has a chance to go through it and if they do not have any questions that it could be skipped over. Councilman Guest requested that the last wage survey that was done for the City of Paris two or three years ago, which was tabled, be brought back to the City Council. Councilman Guest said it was his understanding, in talking to the people several months ago who did the survey that it could be revisited and updated for a fraction of the cost of the original survey. Interim City Manager Townsend said they have taken the proposal letter and gotten some figures on what that would cost the city from The Waters Group. He said they could bring that information back to the City Council. Councilman Guest said his point being, he had been told over and over the reason the city has certain benefits is because the city does not pay the employees a fair living wage in a competitive wage for a certain job compared to what industry pays. He said that he did not want that to be used as an issue. Either the city pays them a fair wage or not, but the city cannot base the future benefits on not paying the employees properly. Mr. Anderson said The Waters Group study compared the city with other cities’ salaries, not industry. He said if the city wanted to compare the city with industry for that study, that is going to be a major shift in what that study was. It might be just starting over, but if the City Council wanted to update what was done on how they are compared to other cities, that is something that could be done.