Because the cost of living continues to rise all around the country, Parish President V.J. St. Pierre will ask the council to approve salary increases for all parish employees in the upcoming 2009 budget.
In the proposed budget, all civil service and appointed employees would receive a 3.9 percent cost of living raise and would be eligible for a merit raise of up to 4 percent. Some of St. Pierre’s appointees would receive even more due to an additional raise that St. Pierre has included in the budget.
For example, one of those appointed positions, the Chief Administrative Officer, would see a salary increase of around 8.9 percent – from $101,000 to $110,000.
“If and when the parish council approves the recommendations of a recent salary survey of the parish workers done by the Archer Company, civil service entry level salaries will increase,” Renee Allemand, the parish’s public information officer, said. “Updating these salary ranges was one of Mr. St. Pierre’s focuses when he came into office.”
The Archer Company conducted a salary survey in St. Charles Parish to determine the appropriateness of salaries across the board for civil service employees. The company has made its final recommendations, and now those recommendations must go before the Parish Council for approval.
“Right now, all of this is up in the air pending approval,” Allemand said. “Nothing has been decided permanently for any of these proposed salary changes.”
If the council approves the budget, civil service and parish appointed workers would get a 3.9 percent cost of living raise and up to a 4 percent merit raise based on job performance.
A merit wage increase could be anywhere from 1 percent to the maximum of 4 percent and is based on the employee’s evaluations and overall job performance. Not all parish employees will receive the full 4 percent. In fact, some could just receive the 3.9 percent cost of living raise.
Grant Dussom, the finance director for St. Charles Parish, says St. Pierre also wants additional raises for some of his 42 appointed parish employees.
“For example, Renee Allemand, public information officer for the parish, had a base pay of $40,000, but with both the cost of living increase and merit increase her pay now goes to $43,000,” Dussom said. “Mr. St. Pierre authorized an additional $3,000 for Renee based on her overall job performance looking at whatever criteria he deemed necessary.”
St. Pierre says he considered several things before deciding which of his appointees would get an additional raise and which ones wouldn’t.
“To make those determinations, I will look at overall job performance and whether the person has a positive attitude and personality,” he said. “Since we serve the public, another factor would be the community’s perception of the person and how they are carrying out their job responsibilities.”
The lowest paid civil service employees are custodians and laborers. Custodians would make $12,725 a year after the proposed raise, while laborers would take home $17,397.
The parish’s attorney would be the highest paid appointee at $111,000.
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