Increase granted for three positions
July
9, 2014
OrovilleMR
By Barbara
Arrigoni
OROVILLE >> Although the Feather River Recreation and Park District board
of directors on Tuesday chose not to lift an overall salary freeze, they did
approve increases for three positions and voted to reconsider the freeze when
the district's finances are more sound.
In addition, the directors
responded individually to the recently released 2013-14 Grand Jury Report, with
some of the directors voicing concerns that the Grand Jury didn't know all the
facts and one director indicating she thinks someone is behind the grand jury
inquiries to acquire the Activity Center cheaply.
Grand Jury responses
The Grand Jury report was not
on the agenda. The five directors spoke about the report to at the beginning of
the meeting.
Director Loren Gill said he
wanted to apologize for making statements to the newspaper before being
authorized to do so. He said after the meeting that he wasn't apologizing for
the statements he made to this newspaper, but was apologizing to the general
manager, who had reportedly advised the board not to comment.
Director Jan Hill said she was concerned
about the report.
"We can't escape our
history," Hill said, adding the district definitely did have a financial
plan and had more than half a million dollars in legal fees.
Although she acknowledged the
board has missed many opportunities to right its financial dips, Hill then
accused someone of "continuing to bring us down and who wants to buy this
property on the cheap."
"We're getting
distracted...We just really need to remember the history," Hill said.
"It didn't start with this facility, it started a long, long time
ago."
Hill added she knows of several
people interested in buying the Activity Center building.
"I'd really like to know
who the people are behind this," she said. "They're trying to make
things more detrimental than they are."
Board chair Victoria Coots said
the Grand Jury report was positive in some areas, and that the board has made
"monumental" improvements.
Director Marcia Carter, who
owned the gymnasium and sold it to FRRPD in 2010, said the Grand Jury didn't
have the facts.
She said it was not true that
there was no review before the district bought the building to determine if it
was financially sustainable.
Giving an overview, she said
the board did get an appraisal, and she also gave a presentation to the board
in 2009, along with a feasibility study done by a firm out of Sacramento.
Carter also read documents from
2005, 2006 and 2009 that she said showed incomes well over $900,000, and added
that she gave FRRPD $150,000-worth of equipment.
"It really is upsetting
when they say the board did not do a (good) job in determining if the facility
was feasible," she concluded.
Director Don Noble voiced his
appreciation for the Grand Jury's efforts, but said that when he read the
report, he saw more good in it than bad.
"I can tell you
categorically, this ship is being righted," Noble said. "We are so
going in the right direction... We are taking care of business."
Salary freeze
The majority of the directors
indicated early on that while they think the employees do deserve a raise, the
district's financial status is still not stable enough to lift the salary
freeze that was set in place last year.
General Manager Ann Willmann
had sought a 3 percent increase across the board, depending on satisfactory
evaluations.
In a report dated Tuesday, she
gave the directors a budget breakdown with increases of 3 percent, 2 percent
and 1 percent, as directed by the board at the last meeting.
Employees haven't had a raise,
other than the increase in minimum wage, in a year.
Gill said the district doesn't
have the extra money. He said he does think a raise is deserved and staff is
underpaid, but now isn't the time.
Hill said she is also in favor
of a raise, and could see giving one when money is coming in, "but not
now."
Noble disagreed, saying the district
would be in danger of losing people if the board didn't act now. He also noted
it would be "penny wise and pound foolish" to lose a bookkeeper and
end up having to spend money by contracting for the service.
Carter and Coots also said it's
not a good time to lift the freeze.
"It's a double edged
sword," said Coots. "There are reasons not to and reasons to...I
would feel more comfortable waiting till we get the refinancing done."
Noble moved to lift the freeze
and approve a 2 percent increase, but it failed for lack of a second.
Willmann asked the board to
consider raises for three positions, a bookkeeper, head coach and referee.
After long discussion and two other failed motions, the directors voted on
three separate motions, voting 4-1 to keep the freeze in place, and agreeing
unanimously to raise the three salaries and revisit an overall increase when
the district's refinancing efforts are successful.*
Contact reporter Barbara
Arrigoni at 533-3136.
No comments:
Post a Comment