


While Pulaski County (MO)’s general fund is facing a crisis due to lack of revenue, the county’s property tax revenues aren’t in bad shape. Property taxes, a special road tax fund, and a tax on new car sales pay for most of the county’s road and bridge department budget; revenue estimates show that department’s budget shouldn’t have a problem paying a proposed countywide pay increase of 25 cents per hour and raising the county’s contribution for employee insurance from $200 per month to $225 per month.
However, the road workers are represented by Local 148 of the International Union of Operating Engineers.
That union requested a higher pay raise of $1 per hour next year and by 75 more cents in 2009, as well as providing the full cost for employee health insurance and pension premiums and partial coverage for spouses. Other requested benefits include providing a set of outerwear and work boots per year for road workers.
The union also asked commissioners to consider implementing a court decision allowing non-union employees to be charged a service fee for the union’s work on their behalf. Missouri is a
right-to-work state in which employees cannot be required to join a union, but in November, union representative Patrick Lynch presented court documents and a sample agreement between his union local and the city of St. Charles in which non-union employees are required to pay 89 percent of the amount of union dues as a service fee for collective bargaining services performed on their behalf by the union. Lynch said St. Charles workers still have the right to object to payments on a number of grounds, including religious, personal and political grounds.
Speaking at Thursday morning’s county commission meeting, Lynch asked the commissioners to reconsider their proposed pay rates for the workers his union represents.
Presiding Commissioner Bill Ransdall told Lynch that the county hadn’t yet made any decision on pay raises and still hasn’t found a way to close a $125,000 gap between projected revenues and expenses.
Commissioner Bill Farnham said he valued his road workers but didn’t believe they should receive a higher pay raise.
“We are struggling to come up with money to run the county,” Farnham said. “This year we have a little extra in road and bridge, but I don’t think we can give our road and bridge employees a better raise than we do for other employees.”
“I would love if we were flush in cash and say, ‘We can give this, we can give that,’ but we just can’t,” Farnham said.
While Lynch said a 25-cent pay raise won’t keep up with the cost of living, Commissioner Dennis Thornsberry said county commissioners have tried to help by increasing the county contribution toward insurance premiums.
“We had a 6 percent increase in health insurance and we didn’t want to pass that on to our employees,” Thornsberry said.
“A lot of our employees couldn’t absorb the increase last year,” Ransdall said. “I was there with the employees when they met with the insurance company and a lot of them increased their deductibles so their paychecks wouldn’t go down too much.”
Insurance premium increases differ based on the plan chosen by the employee, but Ransdall said the highest premium increase was $22 per month. Pulaski County paid $200 per month in 2007 and the county budget calls for increasing that to $225 this year.
Lynch said he didn’t understand why the county was having financial trouble with the large hotels and other businesses located in St. Robert along Interstate 44, and was surprised when commissioners told him that the road and bridge department is supported solely by property tax rather than sales tax revenue.
Lynch asked commissioners whether they’d consider proposing a sales tax for road work, but that suggestion met a frosty reception.
“Do you think a tax would pass if you put it on the ballot now? You know better than that; you just said the economy is a stinking mess,” Thornsberry said. “Do you feel you’re taxed enough?”
“In St. Charles County, yes,” Lynch said.
After Lynch told commissioners how much he paid in sales tax, Ransdall said Pulaski County shoppers actually have a higher sales tax rate than in Lynch’s county, located in the northern St. Louis suburbs. Sales taxes total 7.475 percent countywide and 7.975 in the transportation district on St. Robert Boulevard where Wal-Mart and the hotels noticed by Lynch are located.
“If you start asking about a quarter-cent for anything, you’re pushing the taxes over 8 percent,” Ransdall said. “The people in this community have a real problem with paying more than 8 percent tax on anything when you can go out to Fort Leonard Wood and not pay anything.”
Ransdall emphasized that he wasn’t trying to “badmouth Fort Leonard Wood” but said many local businesses owners don’t want their sales taxes to be raised to the point that it makes better sense to shop on Fort Leonard Wood.
Lynch said he’d like to see something done to help the road workers due to their working conditions, which are different from the office workers in other county departments.
“When is the last time any of your employees filed a grievance? You just had a tornado and they were out there,” Lynch said. “Those guys are out in the elements, and they just want some appreciation.”
“Yes, they were, but so were our deputies and our firefighters and our REACT personnel and all our emergency responders,” Ransdall said.
“We even stood up our emergency operations center and I was on the phone with them every hour,” Ransdall said. “We had people calling us and saying they could hear people screaming and couldn’t get to them, so we sent out people with chain saws and trucks to clear the roads.”
Lynch’s proposals for boots and outerwear met with questions from commissioners.
“I can remember when that was done. I’m the only one who was here, but they gave up the outerwear for a pay increase,” Thornsberry said.
However, Lynch said he appreciated a sick-time leave pool that Pulaski County instituted in 2006 for its employees. Similar pools exist elsewhere for cities and schools; for Pulaski County, employees may donate up to eight hours of sick time per year to help out other employees who may have medical issues and exhaust their sick time.
Lynch called the sick leave pool “a great idea,” said his union workers have similar agreements in other counties and asked for details of Pulaski County’s plan.
“I commend you for doing that,” Lynch said.
County Clerk Diana Linnenbringer said sick time leave requests aren’t common, but when they happen, they’re reviewed by a board made up of a representative from each county department.
“We had a deputy who had some severe medical problems; they had to put the request in writing, the doctor sends a letter, and then we look at it,” Linnenbringer said.
Lynch asked what will happen when the county finishes its budget; Ransdall said the budget must be completed by the end of January but can be amended if additional revenues come in.
That could happen based on CART funds, the share of gas taxes received by Pulaski County based on its road mileage, but Ransdall said he’s not sure when that data will arrive.
“We don’t know any more in February than we know now,” Ransdall said. “We’ve had a request in to the state for three weeks now on CART funds; we’re basing our CART fund estimates on something that came out in a magazine.”
Lynch said he’d return to speak with commissioners later in the year if more revenues became available.
(waynesvilledailyguide.com)