NEWBURYPORT — A majority of city councilors last Monday voted to approve a 2 percent raise for the city's department heads.
Labeled as cost-of-living, or COLA, pay increases, they were the result of negotiations between Mayor Donna Holaday and the Teamsters Union representing city management.
They included an increase for the assistant assessor in the amount of $1,450 and the IT director ($1,362), building commissioner ($1,450), Council on Aging director ($1,101), Health Department director ($1,400), planning director ($1,540), veterans director ($797), city auditor ($1,780), water treatment operator ($1,477), sewer chief operator ($1,480) and the harbormaster ($1,000).
According to Holaday, the increases follow a year when department heads received no raises.
"They got nothing last year under the former administration, and they had an economic opener in their contract in that everyone's getting nothing going forward," said Holaday.
Councilors Brian Derrivan and Bob Cronin voted against the 2 percent pay increases, with Cronin serving as the lone opposing vote on the three-member Budget and Finance Committee chaired by Councilor Ed Cameron.
"There's numerous budgetary issues that are confronting us," said Cronin of his nay vote. "And I just thought the timing of this was not really good. I think all those individuals — and I know some of them personally — do a great job. They deserve a raise, and I emotionally support it. But in this day and age, I just can't see it."
For her part, Holaday thought it better to give outright raises to department heads as opposed to perks in their benefit packages, as was done last year.
"They might have gotten an extra week's vacation (last year)," said Holaday, which brought their vacation time to six weeks. "How do you use six weeks vacation in the year? It's really tough. I feel very strongly in the long haul it's easier to absorb a small increase as opposed to keep giving these extravagant benefits that are really hard to take back once you give them, like the six weeks vacation time."
Derrivan said, however, that with a number of difficult choices coming up in the budget, he couldn't support even a small raise for the department heads.
"Based on the shortfalls that we're going to have in our budget and the reduction in state reimbursements for the budget, I think it's an inopportune time to be giving raises to our department heads," he said. "I know all the department heads do a good job — they do. But it's a big chunk of money that maybe could have been spent somewhere else."
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