Zuckerman told board council needs time to review FY 2027 budget before committing to COLA
MANDEVILLE — A routine annual discussion over employee cost-of-living adjustments ended Wednesday without a recommendation after members of the Municipal Employees Civil Service Board and Mandeville City Council agreed more time was needed to review the city’s proposed FY 2027 budget.
Brian Burke, chairman of the Municipal Employees’ Civil Service Board and Municipal Police Employees’ Civil Service Board, opened the meeting by making the board’s customary motion to recommend a 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment, matching this year’s increase announced by the Social Security Administration. Mayor Clay Madden’s proposed FY 2027 budget, released to council members the previous evening, instead includes funding for a 1% COLA.
Although Burke argued a larger increase could be accommodated by adjusting spending elsewhere in the proposed budget, the discussion gradually shifted away from the specific percentage and toward the timing of the decision.
Under the city’s civil service rules, the joint meeting must be held no later than 60 days before the start of the new fiscal year. The hearing provides the Civil Service Board and City Council an opportunity to discuss employee compensation, but it does not require the board to approve a COLA at that meeting.
This year’s meeting came less than 24 hours after Madden released his proposed budget, well before the City Council’s formal budget workshops are scheduled to begin.
Councilman-at-Large Jason Zuckerman argued that the timing, required by the 60-day rule, makes it difficult for council members to responsibly commit to a recurring salary increase before they’ve had time to review the budget.
Under the City Charter, the mayor proposes the budget and the City Council can modify and adopt it into law for the next fiscal year.
“We really don’t know what the impact that’s gonna be on the general fund,” Zuckerman said. “… I think it’s irresponsible this evening for us to commit to a COLA.” He instead suggested reconvening after the council had an opportunity to review the proposed budget in detail.
Zuckerman emphasized that his comments should not be viewed as opposition to employee compensation. He noted he had supported the comprehensive salary overhaul adopted following Madden’s 2021 compensation study and later supported an additional cost-of-living increase during the following budget cycle, despite concerns at the time that the city might be pushing salaries beyond market rates.
A follow-up salary survey completed earlier this year found Mandeville’s pay scales generally remain competitive with neighboring municipalities.
Councilman-at-Large Scott Discon echoed Zuckerman’s concerns, saying every budget decision affects other spending priorities and cautioning against identifying cuts before the council has conducted its annual budget review.
“I agree with Councilman Zuckerman… It’s easy for everybody to sit up here and say, ‘Oh, we need this, we need that.’ Everybody wants everything,” Discon said. “Everything is connected to everything.”
District II Councilman Kevin Vogeltanz likewise expressed support for paying employees as much as the city can responsibly afford but said recurring expenditures should be evaluated within the context of the city’s long-term financial outlook and five-year forecast.
During the discussion, Vogeltanz floated the idea of whether employees might prefer a one-time payment equivalent to a COLA rather than permanently increasing base salaries. The suggestion prompted discussion over whether such payments would be permissible under Louisiana law, with Burke and Civil Service Board member Jack McGuire expressing doubts that municipal bonus payments are constitutionally allowed.
Vogeltanz also pointed to what he described as one of the city’s strongest recruiting advantages: Mandeville pays the employee’s required contribution to the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System, a cost paid by the employees themselves through payroll deductions in other municipalities. Combined with participation in Social Security and the city’s health insurance benefits, he argued Mandeville offers one of the strongest municipal employee benefit packages available.
District I Councilwoman Cynthia Strong-Thompson focused much of her remarks on the city’s total employment costs rather than wages alone. She said every additional dollar in salary results in approximately $1.51 in additional employer costs for retirement contributions, payroll taxes and benefits, and argued future salary surveys should compare total compensation packages rather than simply hourly pay. She also reiterated her preference for performance-based merit increases over across-the-board COLAs because merit raises reward employee performance while COLAs permanently increase the salary base.
District III Councilwoman Jill Lane described city employees as Mandeville’s greatest asset and joined the broader consensus that the compensation discussion should continue after council members have had an opportunity to thoroughly review the proposed budget.
Former Finance Director Kathleen Sides, who continues to work in the Finance Department, argued that inflation affects employee purchasing power just as it increases the city’s other operating costs. She also reminded officials that the 2022 compensation overhaul reduced annual step increases with the expectation that periodic COLAs would help employees keep pace with inflation.
Sides also highlighted the city’s longstanding decision to levy only about half of the property tax millage authorized by voters. She argued that even collecting the full authorized millage would represent a relatively modest increase for the average homeowner while providing additional revenue that could support employee compensation.
Zuckerman similarly noted that Mandeville’s municipal property taxes represent only a small portion of a typical resident’s overall property tax bill. He also noted his opposition last year to a Discon-sponsored amendment to reduce Mandeville’s millage from 8.86 down to 8.21 in an effort to offset expected increased property assessments by the parish. The amendment was adopted with Zuckerman voting against the measure.
As the discussion concluded, Burke acknowledged the council’s concerns about acting before the budget process had begun. Rather than asking the board to vote on the 2.8 percent recommendation, members agreed to table the motion and schedule another joint meeting after the City Council’s budget hearings are underway, when council members will have had an opportunity to fully evaluate Madden’s proposed FY 2027 budget and determine what level of recurring employee compensation the city can sustainably support.
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