MOBILE, Alabama — More than 50 members of the Mobile County Merit Association packed a recent Mobile County Commission meeting to hear officials confirm that a previously scheduled employee raise would arrive two months early, along with a one-time $500 bonus for the county’s roughly 1,600 employees.
The county had already given workers a 2.5 percent raise in the fall of 2014, with a second 2.5 percent increase originally set for April. Merit association leader Richard Cayton asked commissioners to move the second raise up, noting the county had saved more than $100,000 on fuel costs as gas prices fell. Commissioners agreed, and the raise is now set to take effect in the first pay period of February, pending formal approval from the county personnel board. The $500 bonus will follow later that month.
Commission President Connie Hudson said the earlier-than-planned raise stemmed largely from savings identified when the county closed out its fiscal 2014 budget, a review process that takes roughly three months to complete. She said the fund balance improved due to higher sales tax revenue, lower personnel costs and proceeds from the sale of county assets — and that falling gas prices, while helpful, played a comparatively small role in freeing up the money.
Commissioner Jerry Carl said the county typically budgets fuel costs at $3 a gallon and buys gas monthly, allowing savings to accumulate as prices dropped. “It’s nice when all three of us can agree,” Carl said of the unanimous decision. “It was an easy sell.”
Cayton thanked commissioners for acting on the request and said the merit association’s next priority is examining the county’s current health care plan for employees. “We have a line of communication and hopefully we can work other things out,” he said.
The announcement offered a rare bit of good financial news for county government employees heading into the new year, with officials citing conservative budgeting practices as the reason the county could afford to move up both the raise and the bonus without new revenue sources.