In May, the Monroe City Council passed Ordinance #12,219, which allows the city to use profits from video bingo fees to create a fund for supplementing the salaries of certain unnamed city employees. We think the ordinance should be repealed.
This fund generates approximately $300,000 annually from video bingo proceeds. Previously, these funds were used for employee benefits such as insurance and retirement, specifically to help pay for pension and retirement increases. The new ordinance aims to provide raises for employees not covered by union contracts, such as police, fire personnel, transportation, and municipal employees.
It’s a cute way of saying, it will provide a slush fund to give raises to city bigwigs because the only groups that can be helped under the new ordinance are non-union employees like department heads, supervisors, and political appointees. Some of the city’s most essential workers, its public works crews, are day laborers, not officially city employees.
There are several reasons we think ordinance #12,219 should be repealed.
The ordinance disproportionately benefits high-earning employees such as department heads and political appointees, who earn between $60,000 and $100,000 annually. Meanwhile, “seasonal” employees, who are the backbone of essential services like garbage collection and emergency response, earn only $7.25 per hour without benefits, retirement, or sick days. These workers are not even paid by the city directly and lack non-discrimination protections and due process. “Seasonal” is the tag the city gives to workers it hires through private companies to avoid providing full benefits. They are nearly all African-Americans.
Secondly, the ordinance fails to address the dire needs of the city’s lowest-paid workers. Full-time employees such as secretaries, janitors, phone operators, and truck drivers, who earn a minimum of $10 an hour, will not benefit from this new pool of money because they are covered by a union contract, despite not paying union dues. This neglects a significant portion of the workforce that struggles to make ends meet.
Thirdly, the original purpose of the video bingo funds was to support employee benefits, including pensions and retirement increases. Redirecting these funds to supplement the salaries of already well-compensated employees undermines the initial intent and fails to address the broader needs of the city’s workforce.
In today’s economy, it is unacceptable for city government employees to work for $7.25 an hour without any benefits. Even day laborers should earn no less than the lowest-paid full-time employee. The creation of a special fund for the highest-paid employees, while ignoring the needs of the lowest-paid staff, highlights a significant economic injustice within the city’s employment practices.
An ordinance to repeal Ordinance #12,219 will be on the agenda at the upcoming City Council meeting.
In the sake of fairness to the “least of these” the ordinance should be repealed.
