Provo council wants funding for employee benefits

PROVO — The Provo City Council sent the proposed 2009 budget back to the drawing board earlier this week, instructing city staff to find funding for employee benefits.

While most council members agreed Tuesday the city is facing a tight budget year, they didn't agree with Mayor Lewis Billings' recommendations for the upcoming year to scale back employee pay grades, cut their cost-of-living adjustments and to require them to pay a portion of rising health-benefit costs.

Instead, the council voted to send the budget back to city staff requesting alternatives to find money to cover some of those employee needs.

"We have to look after our own," City Councilwoman Midge Johnson said.

As currently drafted, the proposed 2009 budget of approximately $149.2 million doesn't allot a cost-of-living adjustment to city employees. It also changes the first five steps of employees' pay range from a 5 percent annual pay step for the first five years of employment to an approximate 2.5 percent annual pay step for the first 10 years of employment.

The proposed budget would also require city employees to pick up a portion of the rising costs of health benefits. Provo Finance Director John Borget said the cost of family health insurance is expected to rise from about $853 per month in 2008 to $1,048 in 2009, and single coverage could increase to $578 from $467.

According to the proposed budget, city employees would pay a portion of that increase — $60 per month for those with family coverage and $34 for those with single coverage — starting in January 2009.

City employees have objected to the proposed changes, saying the budget is being balanced on their backs. Borget said the city is facing a difficult situation and has exhausted a variety of remedies to balance the budget. The proposed budget reduces city department costs by $539,070, and increases fees, including those for parking tickets and city sports programs, by $516,689.

"We didn't want to have to go to the employees," Borget said.

But Johnson said she thinks more can be done to cut the fat and help employees.

For starters, she said they could raise taxes to keep up with the costs of maintaining the city, increase the contribution of the energy department to the city's general fund, or postpone some of the capital improvement projects. That would generate the $607,370 necessary for a 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment to help employees cope with inflation.