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The Town of Fairfax plans to give out holiday bonuses to employees, a request by employees that the Fairfax Town Council has been considering since October.
The council initially began discussing employee bonuses at its October 16 meeting, but tabled approving the bonuses after concerns were raised about how to pay for them; The town’s lack of a budget has created financial uncertainty at council meetings. At the October 16 meeting, the town also considered making improvements to the town’s paid time off system for its employees, but also tabled making a decision. However, the council voted to add the day after Christmas and Juneteenth as paid holidays off for employees at the October 16 meeting.
Since the October 16 meeting, the town’s leadership has changed hands. Then-mayor Dorothy Riley was replaced by current mayor Butch Sauls, and two new council members — Dorothy Kennedy and Carl Love — took office. Since taking office, Sauls has said forming a budget should be the council’s top priority, as many of the issues the town faces cannot be confronted without a working budget, as previously reported by The People-Sentinel.
The lack of a budget is already taking a toll on the town’s operations, as the town cannot apply for grants and, as Sauls said, is “taking money from one account just to meet the payroll.”
At a Dec. 5 special meeting, the debate over bonuses re-emerged, with council members supporting giving town employees' bonuses, but again raising concerns over the town’s budget crisis.
“We do appreciate them,” council member Tiffine Forester said. “As far as the bonuses, that does sound good, but we don’t know exactly where our budget lies.”
However, on Dec. 8, council member Phyllis Smart confirmed to The People-Sentinel that the town government has decided to give its employees bonuses and will vote on the bonuses in a special meeting. Smart said the size of the bonuses has not been decided yet.
Since the pandemic, municipalities have struggled to hire and retain public employees, with 332,000 job openings at state and local governments across the country in October 2023, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some of Allendale County’s biggest employers — Allendale County, the Town of Allendale, the Allendale County School District and the Town of Fairfax — are all searching for employees.
Although Federal Reserve Economic Data finds that the number of public employees in the workforce has nearly recovered to pre-pandemic numbers, many of the jobs needed to keep up with municipal operations are unfilled. The issue has been widely attributed to low job quality and burnout among workers.
In response, local and state governments have responded by improving salaries and benefits for employees. The Town of Allendale has entered competitive pay for salaries, while the Allendale County School District is offering a $10,000 sign-on bonus for teachers.
The bonuses, Fairfax council members said, were a way to show appreciation to the town’s municipal workers, who have to manage the town’s crumbling water infrastructure and face equipment shortages.
“I truly feel that our employees are a great asset to this town and one way or another, we need to compensate them,” said council member Orlando Spiller. “They need to feel that they are cared about.”
At the Dec. 5 meeting, the council also discussed hiring a company to handle and update its website, which the council said recently crashed.
