Dayton city leaders defend pay increase

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) - Dayton city leaders are defending nearly $300,000 in pay increases to city management and executives this year.

But some union members said they feel deceived by the pay increase, in a year when they were asked to go without.

In April of this year, city leaders announced mid level managers--including then city manager Rashad Young, would freeze their wages to help balance the budget. Some of the biggest unions in the city followed suit, including the Firefighters union, Local 136.

In a news conference, Local 136 president Mike Fasnacht said new information has come to light that's upsetting.

"To say that I feel deceived is putting it lightly, he said.  I feel this is a slap in the vace of every city employee that either welcomed, or had a problem with them taking the raise away from them. And even more than that, they made concessions to try to help the citizens of the city."

Public records reveal that 379 mid-management, management, and executives in the city of Dayton got a 1.19 percent pay increase this year.

Director of public affairs Tom Biedenharn said that increase falls in line with what union members got this year, too.

Biedneharn said, "The management step equivilents are consistant with the step incrases that employees in the union groups are getting as well, so there's parity, so that one set of employees is not receiving any more than their fair share than other employees, so it's really a fairness issue as well."

But Fasnacht said the difference is that only 49 of the 311 union members got step increases of various percents this year, compared with all 379 people working at mid management level or above at the city. He says the $292,000 in pay increase for those in management could have gone to getting more fire fighters out on the road.

Fasnacht said, "Trotwood is downsizing, Harrison Township is having problems staffing, Moraine is closing a fire house, and what that means is we can't rely on them for mutual aid, when we don't have the resources."

Biedenharn said the step equivilency increase started about five years ago to equalize pay between union and non-union members. Biedenharn said they were running into situations where people wouldn't take a promotion out of the unions, because it would result in a pay cut if they were no longer getting a step increase.