The West Wendover City Council overrode 4-1 Mayor Donnie Andersen’s veto and perhaps more importantly disregarded appeals from the city employees union to increase the starting pay of the now vacant Chief Financial officer position by 15 percent in an emergency meeting Tuesday
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The council approved the increase 4-1 two weeks ago meeting after learning that no qualified applicants could be found to take the position for the salary being offered.
According to city records the previous CFO, Sondra Schmidt, had been making about $90,000 a year in salary and benefits. When faced with a 10 to 15 pay cut earlier this year, Schmidt resigned and took a post as the Chief Financial Officer for Humboldt County in Winnemucca. That position had been open since December. Schmidt interviewed for the position in the first week of April and was tentatively offered the job that same day. She official left Wendover by the end of April.
“I really didn’t want to leave,” Schmidt said at the time. “But facing a ten percent cut in pay versus a 45 percent raise at the new job, I had to think about my family first.”
Shortly after she left, the West Wendover city council approved spending $24,000 to a professional employment search agency to recruit her replacement.
Representatives from both the City Employees’ Union and the Policemen’s Union argued strenuously against the raise. Union reps told the council that the raise was grossly unfair considering the fact that the entire West Wendover workforce was forced to take a 10 to 15 percent pay cut just last month.
While it was almost a foregone conclusion that the council would override the Mayor’s veto the confrontation between the majority council and the city employees was a first.
Until the August showdown the city employees unions and the majority on the council were allies in local politics. In last year’s election city employee support was crucial to the reelection of Emily Carter and Roy Briggs who make up half of the veto proof majority along with Johnny Gorum and Bryant Blake.
Wendover’s fourth councilman Izzy Gutierrez narrowly defeated incumbent Alan Rowley who also had union support. In two candidate forums sponsored by the union the three made clear of there unmitigated support for the union.
And in this time of fiscal uncertainty the cost of West Wendover payroll became an issue in the race.
About a dozen of the city’s 45 or so full time employees make over $100,000 a year in wages and benefits on par with Elko or at least used to before the cuts this July. All three incumbents made assurances to union members that there jobs and their pay was safe before the election.
While never using layoffs or pay reductions most of the eight challengers in the race left open the possibility that employee pay would be looked at very carefully if they won the election. The incumbents on the other hand insisted that public employees deserved every penny and that salaries were about as close to sacred as one could get.
With spouses and adult children Wendover city employees make up between a fifth to a fourth of the electorate and in an election with so many candidates chasing a relatively few number of votes public employee union support was crucial in West Wendover as it was in many other elections this year.
Six months after the election when faced with the choice of either raising taxes or cutting salaries the council chose the pay cuts without any tax hike.
A reason for the total reliance on pay cuts could have been because of the influence of the Peppermill Corporation who employs three of the four veto proof majority; Carter, Briggs and Gorum. Just last year the Carter, Briggs, Rowley and Gorum were fined by the Nevada Ethics Commission for not disclosing their relationship with the corporation before one vote.
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What really raised eyebrows however was not the fine or the technical violation of the law but rather the admission by all four of the Peppermill Councilmen in sign deposition that they were called into the immediate supervisors’ office and told how the company wanted them to vote.
While it is not known whether similar discussion were held concerning property tax increases, it is known that the corporation was vigorously opposed to a tax hike, and it didn’t get one.
In ignoring the complaints from the union the veto proof majority may have broken the first rule of politics of dancing with the ones who brought you.
The council also may have added more insult to injury when it ignored a suggestion by Mayor Andersen that instead of offering a higher salary to an outsider the city pay for the training of one or more of its workers already employed by the city.
