Beckley Public Works employees impatient over pay raises

Aug. 22—Employees with Beckley's board of public works say morale is low as they wait for word on a pay raise — like what the Beckley Common Council recently approved for city police officers.

"Anticipation is a killer. We're being left in the dark right now," said Beckley Public Works employee Dustin Potter during the public comment portion of the Beckley Common Council meeting Tuesday night.

Potter went on to say that he's spoken with some public works employees who say they plan to leave if the city does not come to a decision soon.

"This is the sixth week that we're here wondering, and there are some people that are talking about leaving," he said. "If we can just kind of be let in just a little bit on what's going on, that would help tremendously, especially with morale."

In response, Beckley Mayor Rob Rappold said the city is working to get public works employees a raise soon.

"Without disclosing any discussions behind the doors at this point, it's not as simple as we'd all like it to be," Rappold said. "But I feel like public works will have a much brighter day and it won't be long in my opinion."

Talk of pay raises has consumed council meetings for the past two months. Initial conversations regarding pay raises focused on the city's police department.

However, those conversations were quickly expanded to include public works after several employees spoke out during council meetings about pay disparities. Some workers have testified that they rely on public assistance to make ends meet.

With council's approval of an $8,000 across-the-board annual raise for all sworn officers with the Beckley Police Department at its last meeting, Potter said public works employees are wondering when they can expect theirs.

Rappold said the city has been looking at its finances to see where it can move funds to cover pay raises for the public works department.

Pay raises for the police department were projected to cost the city $470,000.

Rappold said one area that the city could cut back on that would provide "significant savings" is the amount of salt it buys to coat the roads during winter storms.

Beckley Recorder-Treasurer Billie Trump said the city has a significant amount of salt left over from last year and can cut back on the amount it purchases this year.

Trump said the city typically orders roughly 1,500 tons of salt but is planning to decrease that amount to 500 tons.

He added that the city pays roughly $110 per ton of salt. By implementing this plan, the city would have about $110,000 to put toward raises.

Beckley Board of Public Works Director Pamela Frey said she has spoken with Trump and Jessica Chandler, the city's controller, and is leaving the matter in their hands.

"I've presented Billie with the savings that I feel like we have because of all the retirements and people that have quit and I've left it in Billie and Jessica's hands," Frey said. "I trust their judgment. I know they're going to do what is best for us."

Frey said public works has 40 employees.

Rappold said he intends to pull council members aside, outside of regular council meetings, to discuss the public works raises further.

With this intention in mind, he asked Beckley Attorney Bill File if it would be a breach of the state's open government meeting act to meet with council members two at a time.

File then advised the mayor that he should err on the side of caution and only meet with one council member at a time.

Rappold said he would do so and intended to start with Beckley Common Councilman Cody Reedy as he has been the "tip of the spear" on the issue.

"Cody, if you could arrange either early in the morning or late in the evening anytime that works with you to come by my office, I'd like to bring you up to date on what we're working on," Rappold said. "And then those of you who would also like to drop in, one at a time, feel free to give me a call."

The second public works employee who spoke at the meeting, James Watkins, said he felt too much of the discussion regarding pay raises for public works was taking place behind closed doors.

"I want to know when we're going to get the open-door agenda that the police officers got," Watkins said. "We want an $8,000 annual raise, same as the police officers got. We want y'all to take it up in an open forum and let us all discuss about it and vote on it instead of doing all this stuff behind closed doors."

Email: jmoore@register-herald.com