Assistant City Manager pay hike raises questions

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

 

A surprise four percent raise awarded to Key West Assistant City Manager Sarah Spurlock on Oct. 1, only four months after she was hired, has provoked an angry response from City Commissioner Billy Wardlow.

The pay hike, which takes Spurlock from an annual salary of $120,000 to $124,800, was part of the employee agreement negotiated by former City Manager Bob Vitas that the city is contractually obligated to honor. But the increase, coming on the heels of contract talks with the city’s Teamsters Union where a two percent pay increase is being discussed, is particularly galling, Wardlow said.

“This [Spurlock’s four percent raise] was after four months of employment. Six months is the probation period,” he said. “The four percent isn’t going over very well with a lot of employees and myself because nobody’s going to get four percent [in the Teamsters new contract].”

Wardlow emphasized that he is pleased with Spurlock’s job performance. But he voiced concern that Spurlock would not only receive the four percent increase, but another two percent as well, if the Teamsters Union final contract settles on that number as the annual increase for its members.

City Manager Jim Scholl said that Spurlock will not receive any additional pay increase beyond the four percent during this contract year, which began Oct. 1. He also pointed out that when Spurlock was hired by Bob Vitas in July, her position was budgeted at a flat $120,000. As a result, that was the maximum Vitas could offer Spurlock, who also received $5,000 in relocation reimbursement.

“My characterization was that [the four percent increase] was deferred compensation. ‘I want to pay you what you want but I don’t have it in the budget right now,’” Scholl said, describing how the negotiations went between Vitas and Spurlock.

Scholl also disputed Wardlow’s belief that all members of the Teamsters Union will receive a flat two percent salary hike in the new contract. Two percent is the lowest increase and several of the lower-paid employees will receive pay raises of up to 20 percent as part of a salary adjustment program put into effect recently, he said. Spurlock took the lead on researching what Key West pays its employees as compared to the market rate for the same position and was instrumental in convincing city commissioners to add $1.2 million to the fiscal year 2015 budget to give raises to 128 workers, Scholl added.

“We’ve got a lot of people who are going to get way more than four percent,” Scholl told Wardlow.

Still, Commissioner Tony Yaniz agreed that while he approves of Spurlock’s job performance, giving her a raise so soon after she was hired sets a bad precedent. He called the raise “the Fernandez clause,” referring to another contract signed by former City Manager Vitas that gave a large pay raise to retiring Assistant City Manager David Fernandez for him to take over the city’s utilities department as a consultant. City commissioners threw out that contract when it became clear Vitas had never vetted it with the city attorney’s office. Fernandez was forced to retire and Vitas left his job with a year left on his contract.

Yaniz said that Spurlock’s employee agreement was also not sent to the city attorney for legal review and as a result, “it is null and void.”

“I do not support having given her a four percent raise four months into her job, I think we should have waited a year’s time or six months’ time,” Yaniz said, adding that despite his concern, Spurlock “is doing a great job.”

 

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