MASON CITY – At Thursday’s city council work session, the Mason City council gave the tentative go ahead to a massive funding cut to Human Rights and its own pay.
Four council members gave Mayor Eric Bookmeyer approval to cut funding to Human Rights from $143,000 to $15,000. Council members Alex Kuhn and Jon Lee advocated for major cuts as well but less severe. Bookmeyer gave City Finance Director Kevin Jacobson the go ahead to add the cut to Human Rights to the tentative budget moving forward.
It was said at the council work session that at $15,000 the Mason City Human Rights Commission would still be the highest-funded commission in the state.
Earlier Thursday at a Human Rights Commission meeting, it was said that the agency will effectively be shut down with a cut that large. The commission was ready to offer the council a funding cut of $20,000. An $85,000 federal grant will likely be lost due to the cut in local funding.
Human Rights Director Lionel Foster said that the commission will be out of business because currently it meets only once per month for one hour and there will be no one to take complaints from the public. The $143,000 in funding pays the salaries of Foster and an assistant; both will likely now be out of jobs. He further said that comparisons to Fort Dodge and other similar-sized cities in Iowa with commissions weren’t fair because they have been so underfunded. He says that the lack of funding in those cities has lead to fewer complaints being filed and followed through upon. “Human rights violations will occur… and people will just not file complaints,” Foster said.
Also OK’d on a tentative basis was a $2,500 cut to the pay for city council members. Their pay would drop from $7,400 per year to $4,900. “We should share the pain,” Council member Alex Kuhn stated. It was his idea to cut council pay. A former council member told NIT Thursday night that “lowering their wages is job security for them… only elites will take the job.”
The council, in its quest to erase the possibility of tax hikes for property owners in Mason City, needed to cut $295,000 from the proposed budget brought forward by Jacobson. That budget already dipped into reserves. Even after cuts to Human Rights and pay raise cuts for non-bargaining city employees (2% raise slashed to 1.5%) and the elimination of a supposed $45,000 compensation study, about $75,000 remained to be cut to reach $295,000. Several council members gave Bookmeyer the indication that they were fine with going back into reserves for more money to offset the budget shortfall. An additional $25,000 will be taken from retirement funds for police, fire and employees. Only Alex Kuhn opposed the move entirely.
More on these developments to come.
