Photo by Evan Bevins Parkersburg sanitation worker Justin Davis, right, speaks to members of Parkersburg City Council Tuesday. Davis was one of multiple sanitation employees who asked council to consider raising their pay with raises for the mayor and council on the agenda. No action was taken on either ordinance.

PARKERSBURG – Proposed pay increases for the Parkersburg mayor and members of Parkersburg City Council did not come up for a vote after residents spoke in opposition and sanitation department employees asked for raises of their own Tuesday.

“People can go to McDonald’s and flip burgers and make more money than a CDL driver for the City of Parkersburg,” sanitation employee Matt Duvall said during the public forum at Tuesday’s council meeting. “We’re out here killing ourselves for nothing.”

The agenda for the meeting, which had more than 40 people in the audience, included the first readings of ordinances raising the mayor’s salary from $90,000 to $110,000 and adding a payment of $125 per regular or special meeting attended to council members’ base pay of $6,000 a year.

“I’m cool with that,” sanitation worker Justin Davis said. “Just give us one too.”

Emily Derenberger, whose husband Joshua works in the department, said they struggle to make ends meet.

“We have to go to food banks each week to be able to support me and my son,” she said.

Multiple employees cited the department’s policy of picking up unlimited trash, suggesting some residents bring in refuse from outside the city and others do not follow rules about what can be put out, creating health hazards for the workers.

“I’ve been … sprayed with human feces because that’s what people put in their trash,” sanitation worker Brandon Jenkins said.

Some residents said the mayor’s salary should not be increased.

“A $5,000, $7,000, $12,000 or $20,000 raise, just for holding office? Not justifiable. Do better,” Marie Krinock said.

Parkersburg resident Chris Smith said the mayoral raise might be deserved, “but there are so many things that are more deserved,” he said, indicating the sanitation workers.

Sue Ellen Waybright, who unsuccessfully ran against Councilwoman Sharon Kuhl in the general election, said she felt that council members should have their salary adjusted downward for missing meetings, not paid extra for attending. And she said the city should “lift up the pay floor of city employees to a minimum of $31,500.”

According to the 2024-25 municipal budget, the sanitation department is budgeted for 24 medium equipment operators making between $27,200 and $42,074 a year.

After the meeting, Mayor Tom Joyce pointed out that there are medium equipment operators throughout the city’s public works departments.

“I get it. It’s not just about them, though,” he said. “I know how hard they work.”

Joyce said the city has enacted annual, across-the-board pay raises for most of the last decade and has done so “scientifically.

“We won’t do it based on emotion,” he said. “And that’s what tonight was largely based on, emotion.”

When Council Clerk Connie Shaffer read the resolution to allocate $27,883 to cover the proposed raises for the mayor and council for the second half of the fiscal year, Councilman Zach Stanley, the chairman of the Finance Committee, made a motion for adoption that died for lack of a second. The same thing happened when the first reading of the ordinance for the mayor’s raise came up.

No one made a motion to adopt the council raise ordinance.

A motion and second allow council to discuss the legislation before voting on it.

During the council forum, Kuhl thanked the sanitation workers for speaking.

“That’s a lot to take in, guys,” she said.

After the meeting, Kuhl said council was taken aback by what they heard.

“We just really didn’t feel like we could do anything at this point until Sanitation Department is taken care of, or at least a plan,” she said.

Councilwoman Cathy Dailey said she believes all council members think sanitation workers “deserve a living wage” and the situation needs to be discussed more.

“I think we need to take back what we heard and do it again,” she said.

Kuhl said members might request another Finance Committee meeting, noting salaries of elected officials can’t be adjusted during their term in office.

“We only have two meetings” left, she said, adding she does not want a pay raise as a council member.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.