County Council agrees on cost of living raise

A continuation of the Pulaski County Council budget meeting was held on Oct. 7. The budget meeting first began on Aug. 12 and has continued as the council has discussed individual department budgets. Tuesday's meeting started off with County Councilman AJ Gutwein sharing his opinions on the budget as a whole. Gutwein said that he believes that the council should accept the department budgets that they have already gone through, but forgo giving a pay increase this year. Gutwein concluded that he is not stuck in this way of thinking, but offered it to the council as an option. County Councilman Ken Boswell then gave a rebuttal to Gutwein's proposal, stating that he is thinking in the opposite way of him. He said that he would rather see the departments try to manage within more restricted operations funds and still receive a pay increase. Boswell explained that if county employees do not receive a pay raise, the county will get further behind on pay wages. He said that employees did receive a pay adjustment this last year, but that was received in an effort to fix some of the indifferences because the county was behind on keeping pay competitive. Secondly, without a pay raise, Boswell said that morale will be lost with county employees, making it harder to both attract and retain a workforce.