Cheney adopts salary ordinance

Besides passing the almost $31.2 million 2018 budget, the Cheney City Council also took care of a number of year-end budget-related items as well as making a couple of purchases at their Dec. 12 meeting.

The council held all three readings and final passage of the city’s 2018 salary ordinance. The ordinance provides a 3.5 percent wage increase to non-union represented city employees, which comes on the heels of a 2 percent increase last year.

“The 3.5 (percent) is the biggest we’ve had in a number of years,” City Administrator Mark Schuller said.

The reason for the increase is medical. Schuller said two city health insurance plans are going away and being replaced by a plan that calls for employees to pay more out of pocket for coverage. The salary increase was needed to compensate for this to make the plans more affordable.

The ordinance also includes cost of living adjustments in the fire department’s contract, and an increase in the minimum wage as required by voter-approved Initiative 1433. Most of the employees covered in the increase are in the parks and recreation department where wages for pool leader, lifeguard and cashier went from $11 an hour to $11.50 an hour.

The council also approved an ordinance making the city’s final amendment to the 2017 budget. The $265,400 move — most of which revolved around the purchase of a sander by the street department — brought the 2017 overall budget to just over $27.45 million.

The sander is being paid for by an $85,000 interfund loan from the Light Department to the equipment rental fund. The street department will then borrow the money from the equipment rental fund, and repay it over 10 years time — beginning Dec. 31, 2018 — at 2.16 percent interest rate, which is the state investment pool rate plus 1 percent.

Public Works Director Todd Ableman said the sander is needed because the current vehicle, a 1989 Ford F800, is experiencing clutch problems — parts of which are no longer available. Ableman said department staff tried manufacturing the parts without any success, and decided to look for a replacement vehicle.

The vehicle to be purchased is a 2003 Peterbuilt dump truck from the city of Seattle, priced at $76,245 including tax. Besides the sander unit, the vehicle also comes equipped with snowplow blade.

“This thing seems to kind of fit everybody’s needs,” Ableman said.

Council approved the resolution to purchase the sander. In other resolutions, council approved a $28,278 contract with Divco to replace two heating, ventilation and air conditioning units at the fire station. Schuller said the units had been “living on borrowed time,” and the project had been in the works the past couple of years.

Fire department Lt. Tim Steiner told the council they had been using on-truck ventilation equipment to cool the station as much as possible during hot days in the summer, protecting their hearing with ear plugs.

Other housekeeping items included council approval to commit certain governmental revenue streams to other governmental funds outside of the general fund, mainly for parks and recreation department revenues and residential street tax money. Finance Director Cindy Niemeier said the approval was needed to comply with Government Accounting Standards Board requirements that committing these funds be done by “the highest level of decision making authority.”

Council also approved a resolution setting charges and fees for 2018.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].