Mayor vetoes wage ordinance

Round 2 in battle over safety director position

By LARRY SHIELDS
SALEM — Mayor Jerry Wolford has vetoed the non-bargaining wage adjustment ordinance city council passed May 6 in which it deleted the pay for the part-time position held by Greg Oesch, as the deputy director of service and safety.

Councilman Earl A. Schory II used Council Rule 15 to take the position, which he doubted even existed since it wasn’t created by council, out of the ordinance and council approved the action with a 4-3 vote.

Wolford vetoed the ordinance Thursday with his second veto since taking office in January.

It takes five votes to override a veto. When the deputy director’s position was deleted from the ordinance, Councilwoman Rita Joseph O’Leary, Councilmen Dave Nestic and Justin Palmer voted against it. Palmer had previously been against funding the position.

When council voted to take the position out of the ordinance, Schory underscored his position, saying, “Somebody’s working in city hall in a job I don’t think exists.”

Schory said he had problems with it from a liability standpoint in having someone telling police what to do.

“The lawyer in me...it really bothers me...can any department go out and do something against the legislature?” he asked, adding council determines the number of jobs in the city.

“The biggest thing,” Schory added, “was who has the final say.”

Wolford obtained a written opinion from Law Director Brooke Zellers which validated the creation of the deputy service/safety director position in the service department and council’s authority to not provide a wage.

Wolford said the position was legally created and called the “accusation” it was “non-existent” as “wrong and misleading.”

Wolford explained the budget was unanimously passed on April 1 with the position in it and a salary ($8,455 annually). He said Zellers approved its form, adding, “There should have been no surprises that the position of Deputy Director of Public Service and Safety would have been included in the ordinance establishing salaries for non-represented city employees.”

Pointing to Zeller’s opinion that it was legally created, Wolford said, “I would hope that this veto will allow City Council the opportunity to correct the mistake made by deleting the funding of the Deputy Director.”

He asked that the ordinance return to its original form

by including the money to pay for Oesch’s position “so we can move on with the business of the City of Salem, adding that would be taking “the honorable course of action.”

In his opinion, Zellers said council did not have the authority to “invalidate positions created by the Service Director” but it did hold the power “to set or fix salaries of all employees” in the department.

Zellers said that since the duties and authorities were derived from the service director, “any issues of liability created by any person in that position would fall directly on the service director.”

Zellers added he was “perplexed” because of the unanimous vote appropriating money for the position.

“I believe that if Council was intending not to pay that position, that it should not have been included in the initial budget.”

He also said that “despite the fact that the position was validly created, without an ordinance or resolution from Council setting the wage for the position, any person holding that position would have the authority of that position, but would be unable to be compensated.”

Zellers added, “The subsequent action by Council eliminating that section from the wage ordinance has now left the money that they originally appropriated to pay that position in limbo in the Service Director’s budget.”

Palmer, the Finance Committee chairman, said said he didn’t know if he would vote to over ride the veto.

“I need to read the mayor’s letter to determine the rationale,” he said, noting the only person being “punished” is the fire chief.

There was an item in the ordinance to place the fire chief’s salary steps on par with the police chief along with corrections to the minimum wages for certain potions.

Asked if there were other options, Palmer acknowledged it might be back to “square one.”

He said it could return to the Finance Committee, where O’Leary and Nestic serve, to be reviewed and resubmitted to council.

Palmer said he preferred to wait to see if there was a move to over ride the veto during Tuesday’s council meeting. Council meets at 7 p.m.

He said he didn’t want to waste time in the law director’s office going over it, but repeated the rationale in the mayor’s letter would determine his position.

Larry Shields can be reached at lshields@salemnews.net'>lshields@salemnews.net