By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW – Only the Warsaw Common Council can approve a salary increase for themselves, and six of the seven members approved on first reading Monday night to do just that. 

If the 2023 elected officials salary ordinance is approved on second reading at the Council’s Dec. 5 meeting, Council members will see their annual salary go from $6,946 to $8,556 in 2023. That’s an increase of $1,610, or about 18.8%.

Council previously this year approved a 4% salary increase for city employees for 2023. 

The elected salary ordinance also provides for a 4% increase for the mayor, to $3,145.82 biweekly; and for the clerk-treasurer, to $2,863.41 biweekly.

Additional benefits include a cell phone allowance for the mayor and clerk-treasurer; health, dental, vision and other insurances to the mayor and clerk-treasurer; and Council members are offered health, vision and dental insurance.

Additional compensation for serving on the following boards is paid: $125 per month for Board of Public Works and Safety; and $50 per meeting for Plan Commission, Fire Territory and Traffic Commission. 

Human Resources Director Denny Harlan presented the 2023 elected officials salary ordinance. He said the mayor and clerk-treasurer salaries went up 4% just like the city employees.

“The Council wages, we discovered on our wage survey, were a little low for like positions in different municipalities. So in order to kind of right that a little bit, we went with the median of what Class (3) cities are throughout the state of Indiana. And then that’s how we came up with the $8,556 per year for the Council members,” Harlan said.

Mayor Joe Thallemer said the previous HR director engaged management and research consulting firm Waggoner, Irwin, Scheele & Associates for a study on all the city’s positions, including elected officials. 

“We took that information and worked with the Aim salary survey and looked at Class 3 cities that have similar populations. And it looked to me like, from what the wage committee discovered, that we were definitely down a bit with the Common Council wage. The mayor and clerk-treasurer basically were at that average,” Thallemer said, adding that the Council adjustment was probably overdue. 

The wage committee includes Council members Diane Quance, Jeff Grose and Josh Finch.

Quance reminded the Council they made a mid-year correction to all the salaries of the city employees where they found corrections were necessary. However, with elected officials they can’t do that in the middle of the year and can only be done when they’re looking at the next year. 

“I have to say we worked pretty hard on this. We had lots of discussion,” Quance said. “… We looked at different possibilities of bringing that in. And in the end, because of the small amount it ends up being, and not greatly affecting any taxes, we thought it would be good to just get us up to the same level that we put the rest of our city employees in and then go on from there.”

She said they had never looked at Council wages before as long as she’s been on the Council.

“This was in response to your request last year that we include that in the wage study,” Quance said to Councilman Mike Klondaris. 

At the Sept. 30, 2021, Council meeting, Klondaris proposed the Council giving itself a bigger raise for 2022 than the 3.5% that was already figured into the 2022 budget. The Council passed the 2022 salary ordinance as originally presented with the thought then that the wage committee would evaluate an increase in 2022 for approval in 2023, which would then take effect in 2024. City elections are in 2023. If the 2023 elected official salary ordinance is approved on second reading Dec. 5, it will go into effect in 2023.  

Quance said Monday it’s kind of hard to give yourself a raise, but there’s not anybody else to do it. 

Grose said he does not support the correction for Council wages, but he appreciated the committee system the Council has. He also said Harlan did an awesome job.

Grose was the sole Councilman to vote against the salary ordinance. 

Finch said originally he was 95% in agreement with Grose, but the data Harlan presented made some good points for the salary increase. 

Thallemer said the wage study was data-driven and analytical. 

“I know it was a tough decision,” he said. “… It’s a little awkward, but needs to be done.”

Klondaris asked Harlan for his recommendation on the ordinance. Harlan said his position with it was that he was giving the Council data and ultimately it was up to them on which way they wanted to go with it.

“You guys do and work a whole lot harder than people realize and I think you deserve a little bit more than even what we came up with here,” Harlan said. 

Klondaris made one of the last comments on the matter by stating, in part, “We make a lot of hard decisions. This is one of those decisions.” He said it was the right thing to do and they’re right where they should be. 

Quance made the motion to approve the elected officials salary ordinance on first reading, Finch seconded it and it passed 6-1, with Grose against. 

In other business, the Council:

• Approved the 2023 nonprofit funding requests to remain the same as 2022. Those include $10,000 for Baker Youth Club; $20,000, Cardinal Services’ KABS; $21,000, CCAC; $21,000, Council on Aging; $3,000, Kosciusko County Historical Society; $4,680, Joe’s Kids; $5,250, Kosciusko Home Care & Hospice; $9,345, The Beaman Home; $20,000, Lilly Center for Lakes & Streams; $5,000 for Live Well Kosciusko; and $5,000 for Warsaw Little League. The total is $124,275. 

• Approved on final reading an ordinance to expand the boundaries of the existing northern and southern residential TIF (tax increment finance) districts. The ordinance designates the two areas as economic development target areas in order to expand those two districts to include property recently annexed into the city for residential development. 

Community Economic and Development Director Jeremy Skinner said there are still a few other meetings that will have to happen and the ordinance was kind of the Council’s first step in the process. 

• Approved on final reading the restructuring and reissuance of the sewage works revenue bonds. Thallemer reminded the Council that there was a “pretty good” explanation of the benefits of doing the restructuring at their Nov. 7 meeting. 

The city will get $3.5 million in “new” money from this process, with $1.6 million going toward cleaning up Warsaw Chemical and $1.9 million to the airport lift station project. 

Skinner said the Council’s approval will be sent to the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, and hopefully the bonds will be closed sometime in mid-December. He wasn’t aware of any other actions the Council would be required to take on the matter.