Mayor Tim Matte announced the recommendation to the city’s Finance Committee during its meeting Thursday at City Hall.
The rescinding of the pay cut was instituted in January as the city tried to cut its costs and offset lagging sales taxes and higher retirement expenses.
The rescinding of the reduction comes after the city has identified $333,000 in additional revenues over what it had budgeted.
Of those numbers, $65,000 was earned in occupational licenses by turning over collections to the St. Mary Parish Sales Tax Office, $142,000 more in sales tax collections than anticipated, $95,000 in Workers Compensation Dividend (although Matte said premiums are higher), and a $31,000 retiree insurance grant the city was approved for through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, healthcare legislation passed by Congress in 2010.
Those, coupled with $75,000 in reductions identified in insurance costs earlier this year, give the city $408,000 in extra funding.
Re-instituting the 2 percent reduction is expected to cost the city $61,000 to $62,000 for the rest of this fiscal year.
“Whether we could do more than that is a question I would defer to another date,” Matte said. “It’s something we will continue to monitor.”
While the city will have to pay $120,000 in additional retirement contributions, those won’t go into affect until July 1.
If Gov. Bobby Jindal signs Louisiana House Bill 332, it will increase the amount of the contribution by police employees from 7.5 percent to 10 percent of their salary and fire department’s increase from 8 percent to 10 percent, too. The measure would further offset the city’s retirement costs.
If signed by Jindal, it would be effective July 1.
During Thursday’s meeting, Matte also reported on flood fighting expenditures, which he said totaled $263,000.
Of that amount, $197,000 was out of pocket expenses, while the remaining was for $66,000 in overtime expenditures.
Of that $197,000, Matte said much of it was to feed the National Guard. He said an informal agreement has been made with the parish to assist with the National Guard meal expenditures. Matte said he expects the parish to pick up at least $53,000 of these costs.
With the $53,000 reduction, the amount the city would owe would be reduced from $263,000 to $210,000.
Of that $210,000, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to pay 75 percent. That would mean the city only would be responsible for $52,500, according to the most recent figures released.
Also during Thursday’s meeting, the Finance Committee unanimously agreed to:
—Replace a defective automatic voltage control at the Joe C. Cefalu Municipal Power and Steam Plant for $5,285.
—Agreed to fund a study to determine how the city can meet the required Environmental Protection Agency contact time its water would need with chemicals before it is utilized by the proposed Louisiana Energy and Power Authority Power Plant. The power plant is being proposed for Morgan City and will require an amount of water the city is capable of producing, but much more than what it already produces. The committee agreed to allocate $6,000 for the study.
All committee recommendations will be forwarded to the council for full approval at its monthly meeting Tuesday.
Finance Committee member Luke Manfre was absent from Thursday’s meeting.
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