It’s no secret that Marion City Council and Mayor Jess Alumbaugh aren’t getting along.
Things got even more interesting recently when Alumbaugh held a press conference late last week to explain his position over the the current negotiation for hazard pay for city employees.
His message wasn’t an easy one, but it was the right one.
After weeks of attacks by council members over how the city is spending its CARES Act allotment of federal money, Alumbaugh explained the harsh reality of how the law is on his side.
While city council has oversight of city expenditures, the CARES Act specifically elects the chief executive as the person in charge of allocating the funds to fit the city’s needs. And to be honest, the city, and all local governments across our nation, are headed into an uncertain financial future.
Everyone would love for frontline workers to get a large chunk of money for protecting us during this pandemic, but the city cannot just cut checks based on arbitrary numbers thrown out by council members.
We do hope the actual heroes who are in constant face-to-face interaction with the public get a fair portion of the CARES Act money, but Alumbaugh is right to stand his ground regarding the earlier proposal made by council.
Council passed ordinances this month amending the 2020 salary ordinances for the police, fire and maintenance departments to reflect $1,000 per month of hazard pay for employees who worked from the months of March through July, up to $5,000 per employee. The expenditures for hazard pay would total $570,000, and council stated they wanted the hazard pay to come from the $909,950 of CARES Act reimbursement funding available to the city.
Alumbaugh was right to stonewall this measure with a veto, and not just because he is granted the power to allocate the money. He is right because that money was not specifically given to communities just so that they can provide it to first responders.
In fact, a neighboring city, Huntington, elected to not provide any hazard pay to its workers. Huntington officials are keeping some reserves for possible issues that may arise in the coming weeks and months, and they also decided to use the money on projects to keep the city moving forward. City officials to the north of us are using that money in ways to try and keep taxes from rising during a time where tax payments and unemployment remain uncertain.
Alumbaugh also provided good reasons for his hesitation to burn through the funds with more than two months of the year left.
He said a recent outbreak in cases at the Marion Fire Department is good reason to not provide the amount of money council is wanting to put forward.
In previous Chronicle-Tribune articles, we reported on how council came up with its figures in the first place, and there wasn’t much reasoning behind it. There was no study presented on what other communities are allocating for hazard pay or anything of the like, and Councilman Brian Cowgill stated he came up with the number because he believed that was what frontline workers deserved.
And it should be noted that Alumbaugh said he supports first responders and wants to provide hazard pay for all front line workers, but he wants to do it the right way and at an amount that will not deplete the majority of the city’s CARES Act money. The repeated attacks by council members need to end unless they intend to do their homework and show how Marion perhaps is supporting their first responders less than other communities.
Giving out up to $5,000 per fire, police or maintenance employee sure makes council look good politically, but it appears Alumbaugh is trying to hold true to fiscal responsibility and be a good steward of the federal money and not just burn through it like the money is free and the outlook is rosy.
We suggest the city stay away from buying picnic tables with its federal money, but Alumbaugh should not be demonized for saying hazard pay shouldn’t make up more than half of the city’s CARES Act expenditures.
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