Fort Collins City Council signals support for raising minimum wage to at least $18 per hour

Fort Collins City Council again discussed raising the local minimum wage above the state level Tuesday night, and while the majority of council members want to move forward with a vote on the decision, council and city staff still haven’t come to a consensus on the target wage or an implementation schedule.

Currently, Fort Collins follows the state’s minimum wage — which is $12.56 an hour, or $9.54 an hour for tipped employees — but in 2019 the Colorado General Assembly passed a law allowing communities to set their own minimum wages above that level. Next year, following the consumer price index increase of 9%, the statewide minimum wage will increase to about $13.70.

On Tuesday night, city staff presented survey results from local workers and business owners regarding potential impacts of increasing the minimum wage. Perhaps expectedly, employees were more keen on the idea than employers.

Employees who took the survey — which asked for thoughts on the impacts of a $15 minimum wage — were overall supportive, though the open-ended section of the survey had comments both in favor and against raising the wages.

Many workers spoke about the need to address local housing costs, but those opposed to the raise felt that minimum wage isn’t meant to be a living wage and by artificially raising it, first-time and “unskilled” workers would be negatively impacted if employers respond by hiring fewer people and prioritizing more skilled workers.

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When asked how increasing the minimum wage would impact their daily lives, the most common response among those making less than $15 an hour was “I would have extra money to pay other expenses" (like child care, a car payment or health care) and being able to save more was a close second.

Employers were less supportive of raising the minimum wage, though support was nearly split down the middle. Comments from that subsection of respondents focused on the potential impacts of negative higher wages, like fewer opportunities for younger workers and increased prices for products.

Some respondents also felt that local governments shouldn’t make decisions on minimum wage, saying housing prices and the labor shortage were the real issues and that it’s simply a bad time to make the change as businesses recover from COVID-19.

Ginny Sawyer, project and policy manager for the city who presented the results, said if the local minimum wage is raised, it's likely there would be higher prices but not likely that employees would be laid off or lose benefits, and employers weren’t sure how this would impact retention.

Majority of council wants to see an increase even greater than $15 per hour

In June, city staff shared preliminary research with council members about a potential wage increase to $15 an hour, but council members were split on whether that was the right call. According to previous reporting by the Coloradoan, a few council members wondered if that change was significant enough to make a difference in residents’ lives.

A livable hourly wage in Fort Collins is $13.77 per person in a dual-income household with no children, $18.39 for a single adult, $19.92 for a dual-income household with one child and $36.28 for a single parent with one child, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator.

The majority of council members Tuesday night supported increasing the minimum wage to even more than $15 per hour over the course of three or four years, saying the change was long overdue and would serve as a way for council to positively impact the lives of constituents while addressing a major disparity.

“This is about the biggest vote I've been part of, or will be a part of, in my time because it will impact so many thousands of people so significantly, in my opinion,” council member Kelly Ohlson said. He added that the $15 an hour figure has been thrown around for nearly 12 years and is “very dated,” saying he’d rather see council implement at least an $18 an hour wage, if not higher.

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Council members Tricia Canonico and Julie Pignataro and Mayor pro-tem Emily Francis all supported either an $18 minimum wage implemented over three years or a $19 minimum wage implemented over four years.

Ohlson said he spoke to council member Susan Gutowsky, who was not at Tuesday's meeting, about his suggestions — some of which were higher than the $18 an hour figure — and she asked him to share that she supported them.

Francis said that even though the increase may not impact large swaths of people across Fort Collins, increasing minimum wage is one way “to address the wage disparities in our community,” which she called one of the biggest gaps Fort Collins has.

Council member Shirley Peel, the only member leaning toward not approving an increase, said she just doesn't know if this is the right time as businesses work to rebound from COVID-19 impacts, inflation and staffing issues.

“I hear what you're saying … it's been a long time coming, but the timing of this is just terrible,” Peel said. “I would say let's really consider what we're doing. Let's consider if there's other ways to manage this. And I would go with the lesser amount or I would even … push it off until our businesses get to be in a better place.”

Mayor Jeni Arndt said she she doesn't "think it's a bad idea" to move to a higher wage gradually over time but had questions around the implementation and enforcement mechanisms.

Arndt expressed concerns that not only would that be difficult for businesses who didn’t budget for higher wages to implement it in January, but it would also require the city to create an enforcement system in a matter of weeks.

Still, she proposed council taking it up on Nov. 15, when a first reading of a minimum wage ordinance is scheduled but making 2023 a transition year and not implementing a mandatory minimum wage until 2024.

So what’s next?

Council members expressed support for moving forward with a first reading of the minimum wage increase on Nov. 15, in part because state law requires that local changes must take effect in January, meaning if they don’t pass an ordinance prior to January 2023 the city would have to wait another 12 months before it could take effect.

Council instructed staff to come back with a few options: a $19 minimum wage implemented over four years, an $18 minimum wage implemented over three years and varying ways to transition pay to that level. The state law caps annual increases at $1.75 or 15%, whichever is higher, until the current minimum wage reaches the level adopted by local government.

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Sawyer also said staff would dig into the enforcement piece of things and come back to council with a more clear idea of what that would look like and how other places have done it.

Council also expected to receive more public comment in the coming weeks and at the Nov. 15 meeting on how the potential change would impact the community.

Molly Bohannon covers city government for the Coloradoan. Follow her on Twitter @molboha or contact her at mbohannon@coloradoan.com. Support her work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins minimum wage increase headed to City Council in November