Pay Raises?

Vienna Residents, Council Members Spar Over Pay Raises
by Brian Trompeter, June 3, 2009

Everyone who spoke at the June 1 Vienna Town Council meeting, from council members to Vienna residents, agreed town employees provide excellent services.

But there was strong disagreement within both groups over whether the council should increase Vienna’s real estate tax rate to give eligible town workers pay raises.

Carole Wolfand, owner of Vienna Paint & Decorating Co., said all of the store’s employees, including her, have taken pay cuts because business has declined sharply.

Raising taxes to finance pay increases for town workers would impose unnecessarily on business owners and the public, Wolfand said.

“The pay-increase proposal should not be on the table,” she said.

Vienna Town Manager John Schoeberlein’s proposed fiscal year 2010 budget would raise the tax rate by 2.4 cents to 23.31 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.

The proposed budget does not include cost-of-living adjustments for town employees, but leaves in place salary-step increases based on longevity with the town. Many of the town’s 177 workers qualify for the increases, which average 3 percent.

Vienna resident David Minyard and Master Police Officer Tom Taylor, president of the Vienna Police Association, pressed the council to at least give step increases to law-enforcement personnel. Police health-insurance premiums soon will increase $35 per month, Taylor said.

But Donald Chumley, who serves on the Vienna Board of Zoning Appeals, urged council members not to give raises just to certain employee groups.

“Is it really fair to those people on the sanitation trucks that they get nothing?” Chumley asked.

Vienna resident Richard Dingman said the council should hold the line on tax increases during this recession.

“Bear in mind that the tax burden covers an awful lot of people,” Dingman said.

Vienna resident John Runyon also argued for fiscal restraint.

“The message you send as delegates is important,” Runyon told the council. “Everybody in the country is suffering, except a few who are very wealthy.”

Council member Michael Polychrones, who is serving as president of the Virginia Municipal League, provided a lengthy list of Northern Virginia jurisdictions that had frozen pay levels or laid off employees.

But Council member Maud Robinson, who did not seek re-election this year and will leave office on June 30, said the town government has managed its affairs prudently and should reward its employees as a matter of civic pride.

Vienna residents pay the town’s real estate tax in addition to the one levied by Fairfax County.

Council member Edythe Kelleher noted that because town property values did not decline as sharply as others in the county, Vienna homeowners will get stuck paying an average of $224 more under the newly increased county tax rate.

The Town Council will discuss the salary-step question at its work session on Monday, June 8 at 7 p.m. and will adopt the fiscal year 2010 budget at its June 15 meeting.

Under state law, the council may adopt a tax rate that is lower than the one advertised, but not set the rate higher than that amount.

If the council opts not to finance step increases this year, it is unlikely the town would double-up on such increases in future years to make up the difference, Schoeberlein said.

“If it’s gone this year, it would be gone forever,” he said.