Walden employees state their case for raises

By Connor Linskey
Posted 5/12/21

At last Tuesday’s Walden Village Board meeting, Walden Treasurer Kelly A. Kelly read a letter addressed to the village board, which outlined several village employees’ grievances with …

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Walden employees state their case for raises

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At last Tuesday’s Walden Village Board meeting, Walden Treasurer Kelly A. Kelly read a letter addressed to the village board, which outlined several village employees’ grievances with Recreation Coordinator Michael Bliss’ new salary. The letter was written by Kelly, Village Clerk Marisa Kraus, Deputy Village Treasurer/Clerk Gina Somma, Building Department Secretary Darlene Ciardullo, Code Enforcement Officer Michael Friedman as well as Administrative Assistant Maria Tapia.

In the upcoming fiscal year, which runs from June 1, 2021 to May 31, 2022, Bliss will earn $85,691. This is a pay increase of $15,000 from the current fiscal year. Bliss also earns a yearly salary of $18,000 as a part-time Town of Montgomery recreation director. The employees’ main concern with Bliss’ raise is that it was much greater than the pay increases for the village’s other non-union employees.

“The village, along with the rest of the world, suffered through the global COVID-19 pandemic last year,” Kelly said. “While most of the world shut down, the majority of our department’s remained open and functioning to service the needs of the taxpayers and residents of this village. The only department that was required to be shut down was parks and recreation due to COVID restrictions.”

Kelly added that the village’s building department saw a large increase in building permits last spring, as many people were performing home improvements at that time and this spring has shown a similar trend. The building department was one of the many departments that was busier during the pandemic and was short-staffed with an unfilled code enforcement officer position. During the summer and fall of 2020, the building department transitioned to the Edmunds software program. Kelly confirmed that this was a big undertaking for the entire building department, the treasurer as well as the finance staff. They worked as a team to get the program up and running in order to streamline the building permit process, which benefited Walden residents and taxpayers. In addition, the building department secretary took on the daunting task of manually moving things from the old software to the new software, to assist in lowering the cost for a portion of the Edmunds conversion. This conversion was vital, as it had been an issue on many audit reports.

Along with the building department, Kelly noted that the village clerk and finance department also continued to work during the pandemic. The village still needed to pay all employees, specifically the police department and the department of public works (DPW), as they were still actively working to keep the village services going during the pandemic while also facing staffing issues due to illnesses and quarantining rules caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, the finance department was required to reduce staff due to the governor’s mandate and their part-time employee had to resign due to childcare issues. This left the clerk/finance office that is normally run by three-and-a-half employees, to be run by two employees. The village also experienced a huge increase in garbage complaints during that time, as many people were home due to the pandemic. The building department offered to assist with the overwhelming amount of garbage complaints to ease some of the pressure. Water/sewer billing and commercial garbage billing needed to be done to keep both departments financially fluid. The clerk/finance department was lucky enough that the secretary to the DPW found time in her busy schedule to come and assist with opening and sorting mail a few hours each week. The DPW needed to install a drop box outside so the clerk/finance department could get payments for those that wanted to leave payments. Accounts payable still needed to be coded, vouchers produced and bills paid. Relevies needed to be done and a budget needed to be formulated for the taxpayers. The pandemic also meant no in-person meetings, leaving the clerk with the task of trying to find ways to livestream them.

The letter stated that each Village of Walden employee deserved an opportunity to request a larger raise than what was awarded in the 2021-2022 budget.

“While none of us would burden the taxpayers and ask for anything of that magnitude, we would like to be respected for our hard work in this village,” Kelly said. “We would also ask for an explanation as to what the criteria is to receive a larger salary increase?”

Kelly confirmed that all non-union employees had been instructed that they could not burden the taxpayers with exorbitant requests. In addition, they had been told that the non-union employees are supposed to follow the pay scale on the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) contracts. This CSEA pay scale directive had been followed by non-union employees in the last five years except for one employee, the recreation coordinator who received a five percent raise in 2017 and six percent in 2018 while the rest of the non-union employees had only received the standard increase.

The letter concluded with a suggestion that the village board conduct a budget transfer for the upcoming 2021-2022 budget to move all or some of the wage increase awarded to Bliss to a budget line that would serve village residents and taxpayers.

In the waning moments of last Tuesday’s meeting, Walden Deputy Mayor Willie Carley addressed the employees’ concerns regarding the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

“In regards to the budget, it is being worked on to make everything equal and fair,” he said.