Zebulon mulls employee raises, public recreation expansion for latest budget

The Zebulon town board considered allocating more money for cost of living raises for municipal staff, higher pay for police and fire, and an expansion of recreation programs for community members during its budget work session Tuesday night.

Interim Town Manager Taiwo Jaiyeoba directed the conversation toward the comparatively low pay offered for town employees in Zebulon as compared to neighboring communities. Last year, town employees received a two percent cost of living salary adjustment, the first pay adjustment of its kind in Zebulon since 1996.

Despite last year’s bump, Jaiyeoba said that compensation for municipal employees still lags behind that of neighboring communities.

“When you factor in the adjustments for employee pay, we still fall below other cities and municipalities,” he said. “I want us to employ and keep employees who are proud to work here in Zebulon, and I would not want to lose them to other towns and municipalities.”

The town board identified public works, police, and fire as departments that are in the most need for a pay raise. In looking at next year’s budget, board members repeatedly stressed the need to be ‘intentional’ with public funds so as to meet the most pressing needs for the most underfunded departments.

“It’s not that we’re putting any one department over another, but when you look at public works and their numbers, those folks have definitely not gotten the pay increases that they’ve needed,” Commissioner Quentin Miles said.

The board also keyed in on police and fire as two departments that they’d like to see prioritized in next year’s budget. Commissioner Shannon Baxter highlighted the dangerous nature of the work involved as one reason she’d like to see those departments more fully funded.

“I’m not going to see an accountant pull someone out of a burning vehicle, but I’m absolutely going to see someone in the police or fire departments do that,” she said. “And those employees in other departments are doing other good work that we need, but they’re not doing work that jeopardizes their lives, and they [police and fire] are being severely underpaid.”

The board heard from Parks and Recreation Director Sheila Long on the state of her department. She says that programming directed at teen involvement is one area where her department could improve. She also said that the town’s community center isn’t large enough or modern enough to serve residents.

“The current community center strains us in so many ways,” she said. “And I think we have a lot of opportunities in front of us to consider what we want out of a community center so we can properly design it to meet our needs.”

In addition to the building itself, town board members voiced frustration with the limited number of civic programs that are offered to Zebulon’s young people. As schools let out and summer begins, they agreed that a vibrant, active series of community-minded programs would only help engage kids in the states second fastest growing municipality.

“It’s just simply that we don’t have anything,” Commissioner Amber Davis said. “Outside of Parks and Rec we have nothing, especially for our youth. We have the Boys and Girls Club, but they age out eventually. So what do we offer for those kids?”

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