The city of Airway Heights has not yet reached a wage agreement with its Public Safety Guild, and it looks like that discussion could stretch into 2019.
At the City Council’s Dec. 3 meeting, members heard the first reading of an ordinance to set the 2019 salaries for city employees. Local 270A workers and non-represented employees other than the city manager and department heads all received a 3 percent wage increase effective the first of the year.
However, an agreement with the Public Safety Guild, which works with full-time police and fire service employees, has yet to be reached, and a resolution does not seem to be forthcoming.
“It looks like that is going to stretch into 2019,” City Manager Albert Tripp said. “There’s only one more real meeting with council between now and the end of the year, and we have some additional administrative work we need to do on the city side of things.”
A representative for the Public Safety Guild could not be reached for comment.
Like many other cities, Airway Heights compares the salaries for its employees to those being offered in other similar communities. Many of those communities have not yet reached agreements with their own bargaining groups, making the city’s situation not at all unique.
“When you’re relying on data like that and you just don’t have it yet, it just might take a little longer,” Tripp said.
Shannen Talbot can be reached at [email protected].
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