The 774 city of Wichita employees represented by the service union can expect sizable pay raises in 2025 and 2026 under the contract approved by the City Council at a special Thursday-evening meeting.
Those employees, who work in the public works, parks and housing departments, are slated to receive 6% general pay increases each of the next two years and 2.5% merit step increases unless they’ve been placed on probation. Certain police and fire employees represented by the service union will also receive those raises.
Around 65% of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 513 members voted to ratify the contract on July 12, according to business representative Esau Freeman. The council voted 7-0 to approve the agreement, which will cover the period between Dec. 21, 2024 and Dec. 18, 2026.
In addition to guaranteed raises, the contract adds language requiring each division with union-represented workers to maintain and update a list every six months conclusively establishing the seniority of employees. That list will now be used to determine which employees will be put out of work first in event of mandatory furloughs.
“In the event a mandatory furlough is necessary within a work unit and same classification, probationary employees shall be furloughed first. Any additional furlough shall be made in an inverse order of Divisional Seniority,” the contract states.
Freeman said union employees were divided over whether the proposed raises were large enough in light of other recent pay increases for public safety employees, including the 13% raises police officers received this year on top of one-time $5,000 bonuses last December.
“It wasn’t necessarily that people didn’t believe we had negotiated good items, but there was a rather large concern with those employee groups that they didn’t get the same 13% (pay raises) that police and fire got,” Freeman said. “They felt like, as the people who keep your drinking water clean and keep your streets up, your snow removal and things like that, that they’re equally important and they expected to see some equity in that. So that’s why workers were split.”
William Leroy Glander, a former public works employee, told the council he quit his city job when he was given a better opportunity in Goddard.
“I took pride in doing snow removal. I took pride being able to say I work here,” Glander said. “But with the increase of my house going up, my bills, all that, I was not making enough money.
“They offered me more money and then they offered me a better retirement where I can retire in fifteen years . . . We need to take care of our city employees.”
Council member Becky Tuttle told Freeman she hopes the city’s service employees feel valued.
“When raises or bonuses are given — I’ve received them in the past. I never remember what I spent the money on but I always remember that it made me feel appreciated and respected, and I hope that’s how your employees feel,” Tuttle said.
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