BOZEMAN – At this week’s city commission meeting there will be a special presentation concerning the Bozeman’s current minimum wage and city employees that are being paid less than $15 an hour.
City Commissioner Terry Cunningham started the minimum wage discussion during the first week of June. Cunningham’s main concern was employees making less than $15 an hour would not be making a livable wage.
During the following weeks, various community members voiced their same concerns about city employees minimum wage and asked the city to consider raising it.
Cunningham proposed gradually increasing the minimum wage over the next three years, where it would eventually end up at $15 an hour. The other commissioners said they would need more information from the city before they could make that decision.
Assistant City Manager Anna Rosenberry has been working on a presentation about how many people from the city are making less than ten $10 an hour. Along with this information, the city has also worked on gathering whether these employees are part-time, full-time or
seasonal workers and what kind of benefits they are receiving.
Rosenberry wants to make it clear to commissioners at this week’s meeting, that not everything is under their control.
“There are certainly things that the City Manager has authority to do,” said Rosenberry. “So we will talk about what City Manager Surratt has been able to make happen. And then we will let them know what things aren’t necessarily in the city’s control or the commissioner’s control and our strategy with dealing with those issues over the next year or so.”
The city put aside $20,000 in the FY19 budget to put toward minimum wage in the next year.
