This article was originally published by Margaret Carmel in BoiseDev.
Some of the City of Boise’s lowest paid employees got a raise as part of a new living wage initiative.
Starting January 3, 112 workers on the city’s payroll saw a boost to their paycheck. This additional funding brought the minimum starting wages for all city employees up from $11.88 to $13.53 to keep pace with the rise of cost of living in Boise.
City spokesperson Seth Ogilve said the number was determined by a study from Bloomberg. He said the reason for the raises was so the city could “live its values” of paying critical staff more.
“This wasn’t in connection to retention,” he said. “We did this because we think people should make more money.”
Affected employees were mostly working at the Boise Public Library and custodial staff.
This increase will cost the city an additional $143,000 in the fiscal year 2021 budget. This one came from $500,000 in the FY 2021 budget for raises across the city voted on by council last summer.
