Haines Borough Assembly member Mike Case is proposing clerk Julie Cozzi receive a $15,000 salary bump, from her present $70,000 to $85,000.
Case said the proposal will be on the agenda in the form of a resolution at Tuesday’s assembly meeting.
“She’s underpaid in terms of her value to the borough given that she is always called upon to do the manager’s work. Even when we have a manager, she ends up kind of managing the borough,” Case said in an interview Wednesday.
Cozzi has worked for the borough since 2003, when she replaced 18-year clerk Susan Johnston. She has served as acting and interim manager on numerous occasions for varying periods of time; most recently, she served as acting manager for a little less than a month after former manager David Sosa resigned.
According to the current borough budget, Cozzi is salaried at $69,800, or $33.59 per hour.
In December 2014, Cozzi’s contract renegotiation increased her salary from $62,940 to $67,500. The contract included a provision for a 3.5 percent bump on July 1, 2015, and for additional increases of between 1.5 percent and 4 percent, depending on performance, each subsequent year. Cozzi’s contract expires in 2017.
Case said Cozzi is underpaid compared to other municipal clerks in comparably-sized Alaskan communities. He said he considered clerk salaries in other communities when he put together his proposal.
“I looked at it in terms of what do other management positions make and whether we can give her a position appropriate in that spectrum,” Case said.
The Alaska Municipal League’s Salary and Benefits Survey documents the following average hourly rates for clerks around the state: Sitka ($39.99), City of Ketchikan ($38.73), Kodiak ($52.62), Valdez ($54.60), Nome ($41.56), Petersburg ($32.69), Seward ($34.83), Wrangell ($33.49), Skagway ($39.88) and Hoonah ($44.19).
If approved by the assembly, Case’s proposal would raise Cozzi’s hourly wage from $33.59 to $40.86.
“We have underpaid her for a long, long time. Quite frankly, I think most municipal clerks are somewhat underpaid depending on where they are. To be honest, I think it is sex discrimination,” Case said, referring to the fact that most municipal clerks in Alaska are women.
“We can’t just live with that and say, ‘Oh, that’s the way things are. Women are just paid less than men,’” he added.
Case said he didn’t think the raise proposal would irritate or provoke animosity from other borough employees, who he acknowledged are also generally underpaid.
“No, I really don’t (think other employees will be upset) for several reasons. It’s like that TV show ‘Everybody Loves Raymond.’ Everybody loves Julie. She’s such a wonderful person and she helps everyone. I just went in to see her and she’s working through her lunch hour,” Case said.
“(Other employees) don’t work through their lunch hours. She’s the only one I know who consistently does it,” he added.
(Unlike Cozzi, who is salaried, most other borough employees are hourly and would have to be paid overtime if they worked through their lunch breaks.)
Case alluded to his forthcoming proposal at the Dec. 29 special assembly meeting during assembly member comments. “In the very near future, I’m going to make a proposal for a significant increase in the money that we pay our clerk. She’s woefully underpaid. It’s going to cost a bunch of money, but I’m going to make that proposal soon.”
Case said he is looking forward to working with chief fiscal officer Jila Stuart to identify where the additional funds can come from. He plans to cobble together the money from numerous places in the budget.
“We’re not going to get it all from one place,” Case said. “There’s ways that you can move things around.”
Aside from her strong work ethic, Case said Cozzi is very highly-regarded among her peers in the municipal community. She also possesses a Master Municipal Clerk certification.
“More than anything, I want to be fair to her. She’s been more than fair to us, and I want to treat her fairly,” he said.
When asked Wednesday if he would support increasing Cozzi’s salary, assembly member George Campbell did not want to comment beyond a general statement. “Until we figure out our budget to where we are not running in a serious deficit, I don’t think that we should be talking about raising anyone’s salary until we can get our budget under control,” Campbell said.