Among the jobs tabbed for elimination are the staff liaison for Keep Abilene Beautiful a traffic engineer, landscape architect, management interns, a police fingerprint analyst, and help desk personnel at City Hall. The KAB duties would be absorbed by other personnel. The city does not have a large project listed in next year's budget. Driving the tax increase was a request to raise the wages of city workers. Beginning pay for civic employees has not increased since 1997.
City officials say the proposed pay increases are essential to retaining their employees.
Kathy Merrill, director of administrative services, pleaded the city's case to the council Monday. City Hall has a 13-percent turnover rate. About 160 people will qualify for retirement in the next three years, and Abilene has an unemployment rate of 3.5 percent, making it difficult to find new workers. I don't think we're being greedy. I think we're desperate.