City council approves raising pay for two city positions to attract qualified candidates

On Monday, Salem city councilors approved raising the salaries for two city positions they’ve been unable to fill in an effort to make the jobs more attractive to potential candidates. 

The two positions include a public safety communications director in charge of coordinating the 32 agencies using dispatch services at the Willamette Valley Communications Center, and a systems technician responsible for maintaining the city’s critical utility infrastructure, Michele Bennett, the city’s Human Resources Assistant Director said in a staff report. 

The council voted unanimously Monday to approve the increase in compensation for the two positions with the exception of Council President Linda Nishioka who was absent. 

The increase for the communications director position will not impact the city’s general fund, and the increase for the technician job will cost the city about $8,800 this fiscal year that will come out of a public works department fund, the report said. 

The public safety communications director job got an 8% salary increase from $11,684 to $15,703 per month and the technician job wage was raised from up to $43 per hour to up to $46 per hour. 

The staff report said the technician job is critical to ensuring drinking water continues to flow from taps, and that wastewater is collected. The dispatch coordinator job was originally meant to be a sworn position paid at the deputy fire chief level, but because of the difficulty recruiting, it has been changed to a non-sworn position which gets paid less. 

The change is estimated to save the city roughly $16,000 in the current fiscal year and roughly $71,000 in the next fiscal year, the staff report said. 

Less than half of the Willamette Valley Communications Center’s budget comes from  the city’s general fund with the rest of the funding coming from service fees from agencies using dispatch services, the staff report said. 

Salem Fire Chief David Gerboth told council Monday it is critical the city hire a highly qualified candidate to run the dispatch center, the second busiest in the state, which he said gets roughly 400,000 calls per year. 

Council tables discussion and vote on solid waste bill 

Salem city councilors also voted unanimously with the exception of Nishioka Monday to table a discussion and to postpone a vote on its position regarding Senate Bill 1067, which would give local municipalities more control over solid waste disposal.

The vote is part of the council’s process of approving its positions on specific bills for the 2025 Oregon Legislative Session.

Senate Bill 1067 would give the city of Salem more control over how it deals with its solid waste. Solid waste management is largely the purview of Marion County.

Dozens of people wrote public testimony urging the council to support the bill which the city’s legislative committee recommended the council should oppose. 

The city’s legislative committee includes Mayor Julie Hoy and councilors Irvin Brown, Deanna Gwyn and Vanessa Nordyke. 

Leading up to the discussion and vote on the matter Sen. Deb Patterson, a Salem Democrat, urged the council to vote to support the bill which she is a sponsor of. 

“First, this bill does not require any town or city in Marion County to make any changes whatsoever to its contracting related to the disposal of municipal waste,” Patterson said, “It simply allows towns and cities in Marion County to have the same ability as towns and cities in every other Oregon county outside of metro to decide whether they would like to make their own decisions about municipal waste management.” 

She said the bill would require each community wishing to make any changes to solid waste management to pass an ordinance to opt into the bill.  

“It requires no changes, it simply would allow for change,” Patterson said. 

Phil Carver, co-coordinator for 350 Salem, a climate change organization, also spoke during public testimony on the matter. 

“There is nothing in Senate Bill 1067 that would prevent Salem from continuing to work cordially and collaboratively with Marion County on solid waste planning and implementation,” Carver said. “It would just put us in a good negotiating position with the county if we need it. It gives Salem a seat at the table in planning a mid-Willamette Valley coordinated approach to solid waste.” 

Marion County Commissioner Kevin Cameron and Brian May, the county’s environmental services division manager, both urged the council to not support the bill. 

“We get to deal with, on an annual basis, the disposal of over 350 thousand tons of waste,” May said. “That’s a lot of garbage. It is not the time to separate, it’s time to come together.” 

May reminded the council of last year’s closure of the county’s garbage incinerator near Brooks and said the county has a lot to discuss regarding the future of waste management. 

The council voted unanimously to table the matter until Nishioka, who is the chair of the city’s solid waste committee, is able to participate. 

The solid waste committee also includes councilors Gwyn, Brown and Micki Varney. 

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.

A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE – If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE.