The directors of two city departments that rely heavily on part-time and seasonal workers say their budgets are feeling the impact of minimum wage increases.
Ryan Wieber, director of city libraries, told the City Council the biggest budget increase was for personnel services because nearly 60% of his staff works part time. Because of the minimum wage increases, personnel costs will go up close to $130,000 in 2024-25, and close to $195,000 the following year.
The Parks and Recreation Department hires a host of seasonal workers, and although they aren't all paid minimum wage, the increase does impact the budget. Because of the minimum wage hike, the department's personnel costs will increase more than $179,000 in 2025-26, according to Budget Officer Sherry Wolf-Drbal.
In 2022, voters passed an initiative increasing the minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15 an hour by 2026. In January the second increase, to $12 an hour, went into effect, and it will increase by $1.50 an hour each of the next two years, followed by cost-of-living increases.
Minimum wage, of course, isn’t the only increase in city personnel costs. Inflation and a tight job market have also had an effect. The human resources department regularly reviews jobs to make sure their salaries are competitive, not to mention a couple of recent public safety union contracts.
Another interesting note from the library director during budget hearings: Print materials still make up 70% of the items checked out from local libraries, but the rising demand for digital content comes with a higher price tag.
The cost of a popular print book averages about $20, he said. The same e-version of that book can cost up to $60 and the audio version runs $80-$100. The library leases the digital content through subscriptions rather than buying it, so they manage costs by adjusting the number of times a book can be checked out or set limits on how much they’ll pay for a digital book. And they review them to see if they were used well enough to justify renewing the subscription, he said.
“It’s just added a layer of complexity in our costs,” he said.
And that increase in demand for digital material makes it hard for Lincoln’s libraries — like those around the country — to meet patron demands, he said.
Complicating all of that is an anticipated reduction in keno revenue, which pays for a big chunk of the libraries’ media costs. As a result, Wieber has budgeted less for new materials in the second year of the budget.
Online police recruiting
Lincoln police are still not fully staffed — they have 334 of the 371 officers allocated in the budget — but online recruiting has been one of the more successful recruiting efforts the department has used.
Assistant Chief Ryan Dale told the City Council that online marketing efforts have drawn officers from as far as Chicago and New York.
“We’re reaching people from a long ways away looking for a place they’re more comfortable raising their families,” he said.
Although the latest graduating class of recruits contained all white males, Dale told the council a program with Southeast Community College to help candidates prepare for the LPD written test has helped attract a more diverse group of candidates. There are two women in the latest recruiting class of 18.
A new law that makes law enforcement officers and their dependents eligible for tuition reimbursement and a partnership with SCC where officers can get college credit for graduating from the police academy have also helped with recruitment, he said.
So what happens to that money allocated for those remaining 37 officers yet to be hired? Dale and the business manager told the council some of it is used for overtime pay needed to make up for the staff shortages and to hire retired personnel back part-time for the same reason.
The cost of salary and benefits for an entry level police officer is about $100,000. Any savings from unfilled positions goes into a "reappropriation fund," and in addition to paying for overtime and for part-time staff, it is used for retirement payouts, equipment and capital improvements.
Recent reappropriation amounts have ranged from $1.5 million to $2.3 million. That money was used to help pay for a number of improvements such as the northeast team station, the 911 center, the police garage, body cameras and tasers, Wolf-Drbal said.
Retirees to the rescue
Steve Hubka is coming out of retirement and returning to the finance department to fill in until the city finds a permanent replacement for Lyn Heaton, who will resign effective July 8.
Hubka retired in 2016, ending a career with the city that began in 1981 as an assistant accountant. He became the city’s budget officer in 1990 and took on the additional job of finance director from 2011 until he retired.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week tapped Derek Chollet — a Lincoln Southeast graduate — as the Pentagon’s new chief of staff.
Chollet, who grew up in Lincoln and graduated from Lincoln Southeast in 1989, has been on the national stage for a while. He was an aide to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and before that served in the Obama administration as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.
As an aide to Blinken, he played a central role in the administration’s response to the conflict in Gaza, according to a Washington Post story, and last year the White House nominated Chollet to be the Pentagon’s top policy official, but his nomination got mired in partisan wrangling.
Chollet’s parents are still in Lincoln, according to a 2021 article in the Journal Star. His father is a retired University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor of biochemistry and, at least in 2021, his mom was a nurse at Bryan West Campus.
Jodie Rethmeier, a part-time library service associate, searches the shelves for book hold requests on Friday at the Anderson Branch Library. Because of the minimum wage increases, personnel costs will go up close to $130,000 in 2024-25, and close to $195,000 the following year.