City of Laconia to hear manager’s report on budget and salaries

LACONIA — City Manager Kirk Beattie will make a presentation regarding the budgeting process for fiscal year 2024-2025 and city salaries at the regular meeting of the City Council on Monday night. 

City employees are under a collective bargaining agreement until June 2025 and increases in compensation must be included in the budgeting process. 

Department heads and councilors have in recent months discussed a significant need to increase the compensation packages offered to city employees across all departments. 

Councilors have learned that police, fire and public works employees are underpaid in comparison to employees of those departments working for other cities and towns in the Lakes Region. 

In a letter to The Daily Sun, published on Friday, president of the State Employees Association - SEIU Local 1984, Chapter 69 Jamie Lyons expressed concern for city employees regarding their compensation. 

“... I feel compelled to bring to your attention a pressing issue that affects us all. Our city's workforce, diligently serving in diverse departments, encounters significant obstacles in retention and recruitment efforts, leaving the city with overworked, frustrated employees ready to leave,” Lyons wrote. 

Lyons wrote that neighboring municipalities are better able to attract and retain skilled employees by offering high wages and benefits than are currently offered by the City of Laconia, which is contributing to the problem here. 

He wrote that the decision taken by the City Council to purchase the back two-thirds of the Laconia Antique Center, which is adjacent to the Colonial Theatre in downtown, was shocking and suggested councilors consider the acquisition to be more important than compensation for city employees. 

“While the city administration vocalizes concerns regarding wages, recruitment, and staff retention, it also states that it lacks the funding to offer better salaries and will not even consider renegotiating current contracts,” Lyons wrote. “Curiously, it found the resources available for the property acquisition endeavors mentioned above.”

Lyons asked members of the SEA employees union and residents of Laconia to attend Monday’s meeting of the City Council to express their support for increasing wages to city employees. 

The city has no official response to the letter, Beattie said Friday. But his report to the City Council will address some of those concerns. 

The funding mechanism for the acquisition of the Laconia Antique Center has not been decided — City Councilors could choose to either use an $800,000 disbursement of InvestNH funds to pay for their $700,000 portion of the building plus another $50,000 to construct a fire wall which would also split the building into separate parcels, or they could choose to issue a bond to cover the purchase. 

Councilors will review a request for Beattie to investigate a potential retention incentive of $2,500 for city employees, payable within the fiscal year 2024 budget. The council’s agenda packet lists the potential fiscal impact to the city at $415,000, depending on the number of employees working for the city at the time it would be paid out. 

Lyons did not respond to a request for comment on the matter. 

In other business, City Council will: 

• Hear a report regarding temporary traffic orders relative to Weirs events Bake the Lake and Biketemberfest

• Hold a public hearing for a policy regarding unsafe structures

• Hear a presentation from the Laconia Historical and Museum Society 

• Review a temporary traffic order relative to the History Happened Here event on May 11

• Review a building permit on a private road at 119 Eastman Shore Road North

• Review a request for City Manager Kirk Beattie to accept an easement from NHDOT to maintain Paugus Park Road

• Review a request to authorize Mayor Andrew Hosmer or Beattie to sign a grant agreement between Laconia Municipal Airport and the NH Department of Transportation, Bureau of Aeronautics on behalf of the City of Laconia 

• Review a request for confirmation of not having sidewalks on Hillcrest Drive

• Review a request to make a 1.1 acre city-owned parcel on Lafayette Street conservation land