New Hopewell budget includes step pay increases for public safety and public works, COLA for others

HOPEWELL – A 5% cost-of-living adjustment pay raise put forth in the budget approved Tuesday night by City Council will not be across the board for all city employees, and that includes first responders and public works personnel.

Instead, police officers, firefighters and EMS workers, and public works personnel will get a 2.5% salary step increase when the $220.3 million operations and capital budget goes into effect July 1. Public safety and public works are the only city departments that operate on the salary step program; all others are considered “non-step.”

In a step increase program, employees are given raises for each step they move up within the established pay scale for their position. In the budget passed Tuesday night, step-increase employees are not eligible for COLA increases.

There are no increases in health insurance costs for city employees in the budget.

Councilors voted 5-0 to adopt interim city manager Dr. Concetta Manker’s recommended plan, which also keeps all major tax rates the same and did not rely on previously unassigned funds to be balanced.

Of the total budget amount, general operating funds accounted for $62.5 million. That is more than $5 million higher than the fiscal year 2023 budget.

In addition, the budget calls for the hiring of five new positions, including the post of assistant city manager. That job has been vacant since Charles Dane left in 2021, and that vacancy proved crucial the following year when City Manager March Altman left for the same job in Petersburg. Manker, who was the city’s information technology director, was chosen as interim while council looks for a permanent replacement.

The other four positions are assistant procurement officer, account technician, internal auditor and a fire captain.

The real estate tax rate will remain at $1.13 per $100 of assessed value, the personal property tax rate will stay at $3.50 per $100 of assessed value, and the machine and tools tax rate will stay at $3.10 per $100 of assessed value. Meals and lodging taxes will stay at 6% and 8% respectively.

Update on city audit picture

Prior to the budget’s approval, Hopewell’s finance director updated the schedule for the city submitting audits to the state that had not been delivered since 2019. Michael Terry told councilors that he had been assured that the 2019 audit would be ready for delivery by June 30 and subsequent reports for 2020, 2021 and 2022 will be completed in two-month intervals between now and the end of the year.

The 2023 audit would be complete by the end of next March, Terry said.

Delays in those audits that date back to 2015 caused a rift between Hopewell and the state Auditor of Public Accounts, and prompted the Youngkin administration to hire an outside accounting firm to make suggestions on what Hopewell needs to do to keep up with its financial reporting.

Tuesday night, Ward 7 Councilor Dominic Holloway took exception to state Finance Secretary Stephen Cummings calling Hopewell’s books a “five-alarm fire” and other people hinting that the current administration was not doing enough to control it. Holloway echoed comments made at two previous council meetings by his colleagues that fault for that lay at the feet of previous city managers for not pursuing it – including Altman, now in Petersburg.

“When the [outside accounting firm] speaks to the fact that the finance director did not hire the necessary people to accomplish the tasks that were laid out before him, he cannot accomplish that without council,” Holloway said. “And that had not even been brought before council because your previous administrator did not allow that to happen.”

Terry, who was hired by Hopewell two months before Altman came on board, did not respond to Holloway’s comment.

Holloway also said Terry’s hands had been tied because many of the reports he needed to submit the audits on time came from agencies he does not control, such as the Hopewell school system and the city-owned Beacon Theatre.

‘From that perspective, those were positions you as finance director would not take control over, right?” Holloway asked.

“Yes,” Terry replied.

In the case of the school audit, Terry said a main issue was that the system was not using the MUNIS program for handling its finances like the city was. Therefore, school reports had to be done manually, and that took more time.

The school reports, Terry said, were “inconsistent” and not current.

Now, Manker said, the school system is integrating MUNIS into its financial system. However, she added, it might be another year before MUNIS is fully implemented while school system employees are trained and become comfortable with it.

“I think we have seen more accomplished in the past six months than I have seen previous administrations do in the last several years,” Holloway, currently in his first term on council, said.

Ward 1 Councilor Rita Joyner, who like Holloway joined council six months ago, admitted that while things appear to be heading in the right direction with the audits, it is not “prudent to say we are in great shape.” Issues still remain, she said, such as the fact that Hopewell was able to produce only 60% of the reports the outside accounting firm requested.

“We do not want to panic the citizens,” Joyner said, “but we have a fiduciary responsibility to every citizen in this city … it’s important that we have transparency.”

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Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on Twitter at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Hopewell's new budget has smaller pay hikes for emergency personnel