The Bradenton Beach City Commission scheduled a budget workshop for 10 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11, and its first public budget hearing for 5:15 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3, at city hall.
Department heads and Mayor Jack Clarke have met at least once to discuss the budget, and one of the topics at the closed meetings apparently was staff pay raises.
Details of that discussion are murky, though it clearly led to a misunderstanding among staff that came to light in three July 23 emails among commissioners and department heads.
“Throughout the course of the budget process, various wage increase percentages have been proposed,” city treasurer Sheila Dalton wrote in one email in response to a complaint about her handling of the budget.
“They have ranged from in the 1 percent range all the way up to 8 percent. I truly thought that at the department head/mayor meeting, we had agreed upon presenting 3 percent to the commission. As others have so eloquently informed me, what was discussed in the meeting is not necessarily the intentions of the department heads.”
Earlier in the day, Dalton emailed the others that the budget included an across-the-board 3 percent wage increase for all departments with the exception of city clerk Terri Sanclemente and deputy clerk Emily Long, who recently were promoted and received pay raises.
Dalton’s reference to eloquence likely was in response to an email from Police Chief Sam Speciale.
Reacting to the 3 percent proposal Dalton made, Speciale stated in an email that the consensus of department heads had been to request the initial budget include 5 percent increases for all salaried and hourly employees.
Speciale wrote that the 5 percent increase was calculated into department heads’ budget requests and provided to Dalton. “She has taken it upon herself to dictate what she believes the increase should be,” he wrote. “This is unacceptable.”
Speciale said the commission, not the treasurer, should decide what the appropriate rate increase should be. The commission had yet to review the budget.