YOUNGSTOWN — Seven health district employees, who normally aren’t entitled to overtime, will get it through a temporary change to the city’s salary ordinance.

That was the consensus of city council Monday when its finance committee discussed the issue.

The $24,298.48 in overtime to the seven employees — Health Commissioner Erin Bishop, five other management employees and a union member — is coming from a state grant of unused federal COVID-19 relief funds.

Some council members had expressed objections to paying the overtime because it would set a precedent and because the city’s salary ordinance doesn’t permit the employees, except the union member, from getting any overtime, compensatory time or other similar additional payments.

“I’m concerned about this legislation,” Councilwoman Anita Davis, D-6th Ward, said Monday. The employees “should be compensated in some way, but not this way. It’s being done in an incorrect fashion.”

With the backing of city Finance Director Kyle Miasek, Davis proposed defeating the original legislation, introduced last month, and replacing it with an ordinance that temporarily entitles the workers to overtime through a change to the city’s salary ordinance.

The legislation to make these specific workers eligible for overtime for a certain period of time would be approved at council’s next meeting on July 28. The proposal could either include an expiration date or be repealed by council in August.

“I couldn’t process payroll because under the master salary, all management employees weren’t eligible” for overtime as it currently exists, Miasek said. “Council could change the master salary. Then I would have the authority to pay (Bishop and the others), and then council could pass legislation to change it back and it wouldn’t create a precedent.”

Law Director Jeff Limbian said he didn’t see a need for legislation to change the master salary ordinance temporarily. He already determined the health district workers were entitled to the overtime because they were working “under unusual circumstances. “This is an obligation because the work was done and a person should be compensated for that work,” he said.

He added: “I know there’s a concern that we don’t want to be precedent-setting from the norm, but the pandemic was out of the norm. If this makes the finance department feel comfortable, that’s fine. It doesn’t seem to make a difference to me under the law.”

Miasek said that a future law director might interpret that differently, and it was best to be safe by changing the salary ordinance. Council agreed with him Monday.

The overtime also needs to be approved by the board of control, consisting of Miasek, Limbian and Mayor Jamael Tito Brown.

This is for overtime worked this year.

Bishop would get the largest payment: $9,915.70 for 179 hours of overtime this year at time-and-a-half. Her hourly salary is $36.93.

The second-largest payment would be $6,937.61 to Anthea Mickens, director of nursing, for 205.25 hours of overtime. Her hourly salary is $29.03.

The four other health district management employees would get between $724.95 and $1,861.02 with Rick Dezsi, a unionized employee who works as an environmental sanitarian, getting $580.39. Bishop said overtime for her department isn’t budgeted, including for union members.

BUILDING DEAL

Also Monday, Miasek and T. Sharon Woodberry, the city’s economic development director, discussed a proposed lease-to-buy proposal for the former AT&T building owned by the city in the Salt Springs Road Industrial Park.

Kempthorn Collision Center, which owns auto body repair businesses in Canton and Akron, wants to open one at the 30,000-square-foot building at 2933 Salt Springs Road, Woodberry said.

The company initially would give the city a $25,000 nonrefundable deposit and pay $33,000 annually for up to three years to lease the building, said Woodberry, who expects the lease to last a shorter amount of time.

Kempthorn would buy the building outright for $550,000 with the $25,000 deposit counting toward that amount, she said.

The company plans to create 20 to 25 jobs with an annual salary range of $50,000 to $110,000, Woodberry said.

Kempthorn also plans to invest $450,000 in the building.

AT&T left the space about five years ago with a little time left on its lease, Woodberry said. The building hasn’t generated revenue for the city for about two to three years while costing money for maintenance, she said.

City council has to declare the property as surplus for economic development for the deal to happen, Miasek said.

AT&T will continue to lease a garage in the industrial park, he said. That lease expires in June 2022, and AT&T wants to lease it for another five years with a second five-year option, Miasek said.

dskolnick@vindy.com