The Mountain Home City Council approved pay increases for future assistant police chiefs and fire chiefs on Thursday night. If those two positions will be filled and how the city will fund those employees remains to be seen, city officials said.
The City Council voted 5-2 to transfer the jobs of assistant fire chief and assistant police chief from Grade 16 to Grade 36 on the city’s pay scale. The ordinance also applies to the assistant street director, a job that is presently filled.
Neither the police or fire departments presently have an assistant chief. The Police Department dropped the position in the early 2000s amid budget cuts, while the Fire Department did the same in 1997.
Those positions were both classified as Grade 16 on the city’s pay scale, and any attempt to re-implement them at that pay level would not be attractive to would-be assistant chiefs.
A maxed-out Fire Department captain taking a Grade 16 assistant chief position would be asked to take a $13,000 cut in pay as part of the promotion, Fire Chief Ken Williams said.