City Council discusses increasing low wages

Should the City spend more taxpayer dollars to make sure low wage workers get paid more than ten $10 an hour?

The City already pays all City employees at least $10 an hour.

But it still hires some companies for janitorial services that pay their workers less than that.

City Rep. Lily Limon says the City should not be promoting low wages by hiring companies who pay their employees so little.

She says the City should shell out more money so the workers can get paid at least $10 an hour.

But City Rep. Michiel Noe says that’s not the role of government.

“We’re paying the least that we have to pay to get the services that we need. which is in business what you do and that is in my opinion what i agreed in my contract with my constituents to not pay extra for some things we don’t need,” Noe said.

Preliminary research shows it could cost the city about $1.9 million a year to only deal with vendors who pay workers $10 an hour.