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Joplin City Council continue conversations regarding city pay

VisitJoplin.com
Downtown Joplin, MO

In the fall of 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the city council increased all city employees' wages by 9% without completing an equity study.

Link to Agenda for Monday's meeting.

The Joplin City Council held its second work session regarding salary increases for city employees Monday night. KRPS's Fred Fletcher-Fierro has this preview.

Two weeks ago, the council's first special work session lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes, resulting in one council member agreeing with the pay increases brought forth by city staff, Mayor Doug Lawson.

He said the city's tax income projections for the coming years were conservative, likely due to the recent 3% passage of recreational marijuana in both Joplin and Jasper County.

Council member Christina Williams took a more moderate stance reminding fellow members and the public how the city got into this position in the first place.

"I was just thinking back to a couple of years ago, we were asked to approve the across-the-board nine percent raise, and it was very uncomfortable for us to do that because we knew we needed to go through this internal equity process and we kind of gave you that charge.

It's like, okay, we'll approve this across-the-board raise now, but we know we've got to go through the work to fix this."

One recommendation of the city's plan is to implement starting wages of $15 per hour.

After another 90 minutes of discussions Monday night there was no resolution to a proposed wage increase plan.
For 89 9 KRPS News; I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro.

Since 2017 Fred Fletcher-Fierro has driven up Highway 171 through thunderstorms, downpours, snow, and ice storms to host KRPS’s Morning Edition. He’s also a daily reporter for the station, covering city government, elections, public safety, arts, entertainment, culture, sports and more. Fred has also spearheaded and overseen a sea change in programming for KRPS from a legacy classical station to one that airs a balance of classical, news, jazz, and cultural programming that better reflects the diverse audience of the Four States. For over two months in the fall of 2022 he worked remotely with NPR staff to relaunch krps.org to an NPR style news and information website.