Indianola Parks & Recreation Director Carolyn O’Neal sat quietly for about an hour on Wednesday morning as the mayor and board of aldermen debated about giving appropriations to multiple local nonprofits.
The special called meeting had one agenda item, and that was to discuss the city’s FY2026 budget, a budget that had already been passed the previous Friday night.
As the meeting began to resolve itself of its own volition, O’Neal spoke up and asked if the board was there to discuss the wages of city employees.
They responded, “no.”
She gathered her things and left the city hall annex building.
The board pretty much closed the books on the possibility of employee raises last week when they agreed to pass a budget that will likely have a large shortfall that can only be covered by cash in bank.
The city could give raises, at the detriment of completely depleting its cash reserves in a matter of just a few years, something that would probably eventually result in employee layoffs.
Departments like parks and public works have gone without significant raises for years.
This makes it difficult for the city to recruit and retain quality employees, but perhaps more significantly, it makes it difficult for the city’s employees to survive in a world with rising prices and stagnant wages.
We spoke with one public works employee this week who told us that on a given month without overtime, he may bring home $1,000 or less.
This is the head of a household, a provider for a family.
Rent for this person is around $750 a month, not counting the cost of gas, water and electricity.
It also does not include the cost of groceries.
How does a person live on those kinds of wages and make it through?
They borrow, he said, from family members.
“It’s a constant state of debt,” he told us.
For him, it’s family who lends the money, but for many, living less than paycheck-to-paycheck, it is cash advance businesses doling out the cash, at high rates of interest.
The City of Indianola typically pays public works employees $10 an hour during its 90-day probation period. After that, the city kicks in an additional 30 cents per hour.
“You have to choose between paying your rent and feeding your family,” we were told.
For years, The Enterprise-Tocsin has advocated for a better system of pay for city employees.
We believe in the concept of raising the median wage, rather than the minimum wage.
With the latter, city employees may achieve an annual cost of living increase, but with the former, employees and the taxpayers get the most benefit.
Giving skilled workers the opportunity to make significantly higher wages improves the quality of life for those who take the initiative to learn more skills, it gives the city better recruiting power, and most importantly, it gives the taxpayers better results on infrastructure and streets.
There are people in Sunflower County who are skilled enough to fill potholes, fix water leaks and repair sewer pipes, but those people will not come to work for $10.30 an hour.
Improving wages improves the workforce, and it reduces the demand for blighted domiciles.
In the past year, three Indianola aldermen have voted in favor of a raise for themselves.
Thousands of dollars in taxpayer money have been wasted on attorneys, working against the interests of the citizens, while trying to weasel elected officials out of messes of their own makings.
The city is spending tens of thousands of dollars fighting for the right to annex thousands of acres of county farmland, something that would result in more taxes on productivity, while putting extra strain on already tapped resources.
And when the city finally gets around to crunching the numbers in late September, they keep line items for legal fees and tell their employees, “Sorry, maybe next year.”
The wages of sinful wages?
Further population decline. Fewer property taxes paid. Less money for next year’s budget.
But government will never deny itself, only its employees, and ultimately, the taxpayers.
