More money, less problems

When Mason became mayor more than a year ago, he was pleased to see that all full-time city employees were making a living wage, but soon began planning to ensure the same for part-time employees.

Bill Folstrom, the city’s superintendent of solid waste and street maintenance, and Parks Director Tom Molbeck have voiced support of the pay raises.

“This is going to be a tremendous help,” Molbeck said at a Finance and Personnel Committee meeting last week.

“What we’re paying now just doesn’t cut it,” Folstrom added.

Folstrom and Molbeck both believe that the pay raises are necessary. The new salary schedule would not only help their current employees, Folstrom and Molbeck said, but would also make it easier to attract new employees for their respective departments.

“Their ability to recruit and retain people to do these jobs has been impaired because we are paying so little for some of these positions,” Mason said.

One of the biggest issues encountered by DPW, Folstrom said, is its inability to hire workers with a commercial driver’s license — the license required to legally drive vehicles such as garbage trucks and dump trucks.