City staff — including management, union and non-union employees — to receive pay increases through 2028 despite protests, budget concerns
By Damian Mann for Ashland.news
A sharply divided Ashland City Council approved pay raises for most city workers Tuesday night, but left Mayor Tonya Graham to cast the tie-breaking vote over management salaries.
Against a backdrop of protests outside the council chamber and turmoil within the council, Graham said the new pay and benefits package for city staff comes at a difficult time.
“It’s, unfortunately, coming to bear when our nation’s reality is so chaotic,” she said. “We are a very complex town for the size we are.”
Graham considered a delay on voting for the management salaries, but ultimately determined it wasn’t practical.
Total cost of the raises for 181 affected employees, including members of three unions plus staff, supervisors and management, totals just under $1.4 million over three years, according to a city staff report. The raises, which average about 5% for the current fiscal year, retroactive to July 1, and about 2.5% for each of the following two years, total just over $1 million during the current budget biennium, or .3% of the total biennial budget of $374 million.
Avoiding turnover
She said the new salary schedules will help retain qualified workers in the face of a high turnover rate in recent years. The new salaries would make Ashland more competitive compared to other similarly sized cities, she said.
Councilors Jeff Dahle and Gina DuQuenne voted against three resolutions that ratified labor agreements with different unions, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), which encompasses electrical and clerical workers across the city, and the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA). LIUNA represents about 15% of the municipal workforce.
Councilor Dylan Bloom joined Dahle and DuQuenne in rejecting a fourth resolution for a new pay and benefits package for management and other non-union employees.
“I will absolutely vote ‘no’ on this,” Bloom said. He said the city faces the possibility of greater financial problems as two new unions are attempting to represent additional employees in the coming months, which would trigger new rounds of bargaining agreements.
Budget concerns
“We have no plan to pay for this,” Bloom said.
He continued to push for the development of a long-range plan to address the future financial needs of the city rather than waiting to deal with problems in every two-year budget cycle. Other councilors and the mayor also supported better long-range financial planning.
DuQuenne said the residents and the city face great uncertainty about their financial outlook going forward, while at the same time, residents get hit with the city increasing fees and cutting services.
She said Ashland isn’t broadening its tax base, and while she voiced support for city workers, she said the council is losing sight of the needs of Ashland residents as they struggle financially.
“As we move forward, we are on a very precarious footing,” she said.
Dahle said his “no” vote should not be considered as a vote against hard-working staff, of which he had “deep respect.”
His concern is based on having a “fragile budget.”
“We must be looking beyond short-term fixes,” he said. “This is not a vote of disrespect.”
After the voting on the four resolutions, Bloom abruptly made a motion to end the meeting, but the mayor again cast another tie-breaking vote to reject the motion. The meeting ended a few minutes later after a city manager’s report.
Difficult decision
Councilors who voted for the pay hikes acknowledged how difficult it was to make their decisions.
“I have to admit the data is not perfect,” Councilor Derek Sherell said. “We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
He said he had received a lot of reactions from residents about the pay increases.
“Thank you for the direct emails,” he said.
Ultimately, he said, the people who work for the city provide an invaluable service to the community. “How can we not support these people?”
Councilor Bob Kaplan pointed out that Ashland received a recent favorable credit rating from Moody’s, which provides ratings for cities and municipalities around the country.
“There is no reason to penalize our staff,” he said.
According to information presented to the council by staff, the resolutions provide an average cost-of-living increase of 8.475% over three years, plus other benefits such as three personal days, Christmas Eve holiday, and an across-the-board step increase of 3%.
At a Monday night council study session, City Manager Sabrina Cotta suggested fees will likely need to go up for electricity, wastewater, and stormwater. She indicated that if the council raises electric rates this year for the first time since 2021, the 25% electricity tax would provide an extra $500,000 for the city’s general fund.
Councilor Eric Hansen said he’d “love to see a stabilization plan” that looked ahead for the next two years as well as five years out.
“I’d like to see where we’re pointing the ship,” he said Monday night.
Public protest
Before the Tuesday meeting started, some 40 protesters gathered outside to protest the raises and the increase in fees.
In particular, they criticized cutting splash pad hours, pool hours, and other services while increasing the park fee on utility bills by $5 a month.
According to a flyer passed out by protesters, it stated, “We were told these additional fees would solve the shortfall in the parks’ maintenance budget, but have now learned that these fees will be used to raise already bloated salaries.”
Ashland resident George Kramer, one of the protesters, called it “unseemly” for the council to increase wages when people are struggling to pay for higher food prices, housing, and healthcare cuts.
“I don’t get a COLA (cost of living adjustment) and they don’t get a COLA,” he said, pointing to the audience. “We can’t afford this.”
Kramer did agree that workers deserved raises, but not at this time. He suggested a ballot measure that would give voters the chance to decide whether to increase fees.
Ashland resident Linda Adams said, “I urge the council to reject putting this amendment on the ballot.”
She said having voters decide on fee increases would inject more inefficiency into the process and could lead to “misinformation campaigns.”
Ashland resident Alex Sol, another protester, told the council, “I think your priorities are misguided. Show us some respect.”
He criticized spending more than $100,000 on the compensation study that showed Ashland lagging behind other cities’ pay schedules, rather than spending it on ways to help families struggling to support children.
“This is a charade,” Sol said, who stood up after the council voted for the pay raises, with his thumbs pointing down in protest.
Ashland resident Leda Shapiro urged the council to approve the union contracts but not the increases for management staff.
She said that over the past few months, there have been debates about fees to avoid cuts to services.
“To be frank, it’s not true,” Shapiro said, pointing out that the fees are increasing but the cuts are happening all the same.
Ashland resident Linda Adams said she’s not opposed to increases for management.
“This resolution is a preventative measure,” she said. Without it, she said, it “would compromise our ability to attract the best and brightest.”
Reach writer Damian Mann at [email protected]. Ashland.news executive editor Bert Etling contributed to this report.
Related stories:
City pay raises to top City Council discussions Monday and Tuesday (Aug. 1, 2025)
Ashland officials and labor union reach tentative agreement (July 25, 2025)
A closer look at the proposed pay raise for city employees (June 22, 2025)
Council postpones vote on proposed cost-of-living and benefit increases for city employees (June 18, 2025)
Aug. 7: Updated article to clarify that the Ashland City Council sets rates for electricity, wastewater, and stormwater.
