Council rejects employee raises, signs

The Flomaton Town Council balked at a request from Mayor Dewey Bondurant Jr., to give raises to town employees and also rejected a proposal from Councilman Buster Crapps to put up signs in front of town all to limit parking to customers only.

Mayor Bondurant proposed giving raises effective March 1 that would cost the town $17,479 or about $2,500 per month. He said the raises were for all employees but one, but noted that one employee said if she accepted the raise she'd have to quit. He also noted it was not an across-the-board raise but did not say which employees or which departments would receive what.

The mayor also said the raises would help with employee moral and allow the town to keep its good employees.

“We need to study it or retract our freeze on spending,” Councilman Buster Crapps said. “We said hiring freeze.”

Councilwoman Lillian Dean made the motion to approve the raises to bring the issue to the table for discussion.

Councilman Jim Johnson said he needed to study the matter more before he made a decision.

“I'm not anti-employee,” said Crapps. “But we need to prevent layoffs. I don't want anybody to lose a job.”

“As far as I'm concerned, we gave them a raise when we absorbed the health insurance,” Dean said. “The last time we gave out raises in was in October and we need to be consistent. We need to put it in the budget across-the-board.”

The council then tabled any action on employee raises until the budget could be studied.

Parking

Councilman Crapps said there have been complaints about employees parking their vehicles in front of town hall and feels the council needed to pass an ordinance to limit that parking to customers only and requested signs be posted.

“I've asked employees time and time again to leave spaces open for customers,” Crapps said.

He also said Mayor Bondurant promised him he would straighten the problem out.

Councilman Charlie Reardon said he also had a concern noting that the town needed to have a handicap parking spot painted in front of Dr. Gary Silbernagel's office across the street.

Crapps then made a motion to limit parking in front of town hall for customers only, Monday through Friday during business hours. Dean issued the second.

Mayor Bondurant suggested delaying any vote until utilities Superintendent Shaun Moye could rearrange some parking spaces in the rear of town hall.

Crapps' motion to install the signs failed on a 3-3 vote with Crapps, Johnson and Dean voting yes and Councilman Roger Adkinson, Bondurant and Reardon voting no.

“I feel it's a heck of a note we won't put signs out front when we will do it for somebody across the street, especially when we have senior citizens complaining,” Crapps said.

Mayor Bondurant said he had no problem limiting the parking out front, but felt it was best to let Moye look at the entire parking situation before making a decision.