WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) — Wausau’s pay-for-performance plan is still generating some friction at city meetings. The plan, approved in 2013 and implemented last year, had a provision for paying raises and bonuses to exceptionally-performing non-union represented city employees. During the budget process in November, City Council members learned that Mayor Jim Tipple had awarded raises and bonuses to nearly every non-represented city employee.
During the Finance Committee meeting Tuesday, Chairman Keene Winters proposed they keep investigating the details. Human Resources Committee Chairman Romey Wagner urged Winters to wait two weeks until the Human Resources Director completed gathering information they asked for prior to the Committee of the Whole meeting.
Winters says there should be no problem with both committees asking questions pertinent to their areas of expertise. “The big tax increase this time around was the doubling of these raises in the next year, and so we need to be more on top of that and we need those kinds of things presented to us rather than to find out after the fact when it’s too late.”
Winters believes Human Resources Committee members and Finance Committee members both have good reason to be involved. “I think a committee of the whole was necessary, but I think Finance (Committee) has an involvement in the fiscal end. Human Resources has an involvement in determining whether the evaluations worked, whether raises were given in conjunction with the evaluations, whether the evaluation instrument is accurate.”
Wagner believes Winters should let the HR Committee complete the task it started.
Mayor Tipple awarded the raises and bonuses last July. Winters says this was a major blow to the city’s budget, but employees should not worry about losing those dollars. “Taking raises back from employees is not an option, but we certainly need to correct this going forward. The sad thing is that it might take us years to correct it going forward because our pay compensation plan is now so out of whack.”
At the City Council meeting after the Finance Committee meeting, Mayor Tipple showed nearly 50 minutes of a two-year-old City Council meeting video, where former Human Resources Director Michael Loy outlined the pay-for-performance plan and what it would mean to the city. Tipple says he’s trying to clear up false information and misunderstandings. “If we would have had this tape two months ago or whatever, all of the misinformation, accusations, blaming, I-didn’t-know-about-it, I-wouldn’t-have-voted-for-it, all would have gone away. Tonight was a step in the right direction of saying, hey, this is what you saw. All of the information was there.”
There was no discussion of the video afterwards, since it was played during the “Mayor’s Communications” portion of the agenda, and discussion was not an agenda item.
The video is available through the Wausau Area Access Channel’s website on demand, like all other meetings.
(Listen to comments from after the Finance Committee and City Council meetings on our website by clicking on their names here: Mayor Jim Tipple Lisa Rasmussen Keene Winters)
