A Conway police officer and a Conway firefighter, citing breach of contract, filed a lawsuit against the city of Conway in Faulkner County Circuit Court Tuesday morning.
Richard Shumate, Jr., a police officer, and Damon Reed, a firefighter, sued “on behalf of themselves and on behalf of all other similarly situated persons and entities.” The lawsuit was filed by Wood Law Firm in Russellville.
The lawsuit alleges that the city had “unlawful use and allocation of money derived from a voluntary salary improvement tax for purposes other than for which it was collected.” It also contains a class action complaint for breach of contract “for hundreds of general and street fund employees.”
Both plaintiffs and class members are seeking restitution for what they call “unlawful use and misappropriation of the salary improvement tax monies.” They are also seeking damages for what they consider “future unlawful use or allocation of tax monies.”
“The resolution signed [in 2001] is very specific when it comes what the city can use the quarter-cent sales tax for,” said Russell Wood of Wood Law Firm. “What they cannot use it for is other items such as equipment or to cover up financial debacles the city has made.”
Resolution R-01-18 was signed July 24, 2001 by current Conway Mayor Tab Townsell, which stated that a quarter-cent sales tax to be voted on the following month “shall be expended exclusively to improve the salaries of those employees of the city whose current salaries are determined by the city council to be under the proper ‘market pay scales’ for similar positions in similar cities in Arkansas.”
Wood said the city instituted a “step program” to entice better applicants for city jobs. The program showed each employee what they would make after a certain amount of time with each department.
“[Conway] attracted quality applicants but did not pay them in the way that they had promised,” Wood said. “There are some officers in Step 2 that should be in Step 6.”
Wood said the purpose of the lawsuit is to “find out what happened to the money from a voluntary tax that was supposed to go to salary increases” and to establish a class action complaint on behalf of all general and street fund employees.
Calls to city offices and to Shumate and Reed were not returned.
Comments (64)
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Is anyone surprised?
My 2 cents
I've heard a couple of people mention that they disagree with fire fighters, police, and city employees receiving a raise because the economy stinks and no one is getting a raise. Mark Vaught pointed out the pertinent facts of this case. Someone else pointed out the lawsuit is about promises unkept. All of these are good and valid points.
I want to address the folks that take issue with civil servants getting a raise because they work a simple/menial/no college needed job and they can work elsewhere because no one is forcing them to work in Conway.
It is important for Conway to pay these people a competitive salary. If we don't, they WILL go elsewhere. Of course we can always hire more. However, the best and the brightest will usually seek out those employers that treat them as such. Those agencies with scarce resources end up taking candidates from the bottom of the barrel. All you have to do is look into some of the issues smaller agencies are dealing with (employees getting DWI's, chasing spouses in a patrol car, disorderly conduct, domestic disturbances, etc). I for one want the fireman that comes to my house to be professional and know what to do. I want the police office that pulls me over for speeding to be professional and sober. I want the guy driving my neighborhood trash truck to be professional and not speed through school zones.
You get what you pay for. Conway has a professional group of employees right now. I hope it stays that way.
Hey Cindy That's Your Queue!
"It's all Mark's...!" What was that last word again??
Marks...
The spot?
TABulates
Where the problem stems from!!!
Vote Mark Elsinger for Mayor
Stealing from our city employees to fund his parks projects is wrong! I know that some of the parks were paid for by a bond, but I also know that the parks budget went up around 200% to pay for new employees and operating costs. That is where I believe the money went and not to the pay scales where it was supposed to go, where the citizens of Conway were told it would go!
The city and current mayor can try to blame this on the national economy, but the truth is the local economy has shown gains in collected sales tax every year since the pay scales stopped, except for the first year in 2008 where it was down 1.7% (I believe that was the number).
I know who I am going to vote for!
Shame shame
Regardless of who you are going to vote for in the mayoral race, this is shameful. The fact that the people that risk their lives on a daily basis to protect and keep is safe have to sue the city to get the pay they were promised is ridiculous. I know for a fact the city loses good firefighters and cops weekly because they can go almost anywhere in the state and make more money. Roundabouts an parks are nice and all, but I'd rather be safe and protected.
Wait wait wait...
didn't the mayor have a council meeting a while back where he suggested to stop paying the step increases to help afford some other city items and then didn't a council memeber say "can we do that?" So I guess it wasn't ok. Now what is the city going to do have to pay for this? More over how are they going to pay for this and I wonder if this has anything to do with the misplacement of money also a little while back. Something doesn't smell good at all here. Where's Mark Vaught on this? Didn't he vote against this and was this the reason why? So many questions!
And the most important slap in the face is this is our service men and women. How do you shaft them after saying you were going to dedicate a tax to them. Wow just wow!
Hey one other thing ;) Whats the pay difference between a step 2 and 6. I hope it's not that much because now the city will be forking out a bill. I think the idiots that decided to do this to them (our service men and women) should fork out the bill like the mayor and his council.
most steps at the places I
most steps at the places I have worked at have been of the 3-4% variety for each step, so if a salary was $30K at Step 2 step 6 would roughly be $36K
I forecast tab raping the
I forecast tab raping the sanitation budget to fix hiss last est financial mess. Wake up did anyone actually believe tab would not treat the new money like his own pesonal slush fund? What u get with a city council that does nothing but rubber stamp tab's creations.