Our View

Our View

WM employees got raise, still want bonuses

With West Memphis employees hounding their supervisors and city council members for another attractive year-end bonus at a time when city sales tax revenues are falling, it will certainly be interesting to sit back and watch how these elected politicians deal with a bunch of upset city workers if their pockets are padded.

As usual, the only saving grace for this county’s largest city is their old reliable Southland Park Gaming and Racing, which fortunately just happens to be in the city limits and a major contributor to its tax revenues for decades.

It so seems that Christmas may just not come early this year for these municipal employees as in years past where they not only received bonuses but also satisfactory raises. You see, city employees enjoyed a three percent bonus last year just in time for the door buster and Internet sales just after Thanksgiving.

Those generous offerings cost the taxpayers of West Memphis approximately $400,000, a sum that Mayor Billy Johnson will have to pull out of his magic tax hat.

Oh, you know what they say, once a person gets used to getting something that puts a smile on his or her face they’ll always expect it when the time rolls around again, and this is certainly not exception.

From a purely financial point of view, such as the one from City Treasure Frank Martin, the money just might not be there to give based on the fact that that this year five months were up and five down so sales tax revenue declined by $21,342 down overall.

Let’s bear in mind taxpayers, city employees enjoyed a three percent bonus last year and then they benefited from a three percent raise at the first of this year, just weeks after receiving those generous bonuses.

And, the perks didn’t stop there when the city moved to a bi-weekly payroll and simply bypassed a holdback period with the first check in January. Not bad, not bad at all.

But that was then and now most of these employees have spent all that extra bonus money, extra pay check and a raise. Now, there are those employees within the city ranks that have their hands held out again, wanting what they got last year.

So, is Mayor Johnson going to be viewed as this year’s Scrooge or is he going to play Santa Claus?

Well, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Southland’s tax revenues to this city has been the saving grace to its coffers, and it’s always been to this city’s best interest to treat this major employer and multimillion-dollar business very special. City leaders are very well aware that Southland’s year to date tax collections are very strong.

How strong, you ask? Well, according to Martin the city budgeted $2.5 million for the year and he says the city has already reached that amount and more.

Martin is even projecting that the city should get about a half million more than the $2.5 million that was originally budgeted.

Now then, with that said Mayor Johnson may just be able to pull the bunny out of the hat and use those Southland revenues that could be used to fund needed public services and give out these bonuses.

If we were betting on who will win, the odds are that these city employees will soon have a very, very Merry Christmas thanks to Southland Park Gaming and Racing and Mayor Johnson’s generosity.