The City of Columbus plans to award incentive pay to city workers

COLUMBUS, Miss (WCBI) – If you work for The City of Columbus, get ready to fill your wallet.

The City of Columbus has decided to use some of its ARPA money to award essential workers with incentive pay.

City Attorney Jeff Turnage says that people have questioned if they are eligible for this pay and the answer is simple.

“There was a lot of confusion about whether a government employee had to be performing essential work and how it was determined what was essential and not essential and then treasury came out with a final rule and said you guys just misunderstood and if you’re a government employee you are eligible and that’s all you need to worry about,” said Turnage.

City workers who are eligible will receive 3 thousand dollars but not all at once and if a worker decides to call in they will receive sick leave and may not receive the full amount of their funds at that time.

Turnage says the city plans on giving this money over a period of time.

“The first installment period will be April 1 to June 30 and at the end of June 30 they will get 1500 minus their withholdings and then from July 1 to September 30 they will get the next installment of a gross amount of 1500 less they’re withholdings,” said Turnage.

Although this ruling passed Mayor Keith Gaskin says that this isn’t something that he was in favor of.

“My stance on it is this. I’m happy that the employees are going to get some type of compensation but I was not in favor of this because it’s one-time money and I felt like it would be better using the city dollars to try and leverage it,” said Gaskin.

Although Mayor Gaskin was not in favor of this, he says that he has nothing against the ruling and he is happy that city employees are getting paid for hard-earned money.

This ruling won by a 3 to 2 vote.