The living wage bill in Yonkers that would require an above-minimum wage for city government and certain city businesses may finally be resolved.
Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone was expected to sign into law or veto a version of the bill last week.
The bill was approved by the City Council in late October by a 4-2 party line vote, with all council Democrats voting for the bill. The margin was one vote shy of the five needed to make the measure veto-proof.
The bill has caused oft-contentious debate in the city government for the past several years.
The law, modeled after Westchester County”™s 5-year-old living wage law, requires the city, its contractors and subcontractors and businesses receiving financial assistance from the city and their tenants to pay employees a wage of $11.85 per hour, which would rise to $12.20 in 2008. Employers also must provide at least $1.50 in health or other employee benefits. If no benefits are offered, that $1.50 would be added to the hourly wage. Employers also would be required to provide 22 days of paid sick and annual leave.
Amicone in February vetoed a living-wage bill that set a $10 hourly wage in the city and applied to employers receiving at least $25,000 in city contracts or assistance.
Members of the Democratic majority have said the bill would only cost the city government $700,000 annually.
Amicone, however, disputes that figure.
“This City Council adopted this without any fiscal analysis,” said David Simpson, a spokesman for the mayor”™s office. “The mayor has said in the past he”™s not against a living wage per se, but he has serious reservations about the first bill passed in February, and this one doesn”™t appear to be substantially different.”
A public hearing on the living wage bill was conducted at the end of November. Simpson said the mayor would review the comments made at that meeting, in addition to the city”™s own analysis of the legislation, before making a decision.
“We”™ve asked a number of people to look at it,” he said, including the city Industrial Development Agency”™s resident economist.
Calls to City Council President Chuck S. Lesnick were not immediately returned.
The law is partially inspired by a similar living wage law passed by Westchester County in 2002 that went into effect in 2004. That law requires home health-care and building services providers with county contracts of $50,000 or more to pay workers with health benefits $11.50 per hour and $13 per hour to those without.
Andrew Neuman, senior assistant to the county executive, said the law was primarily targeted toward home health aides, as the county was having difficulty retaining employees in that field.
“I think it has been successful,” Neuman said.
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