The City of Noblesville has just announced bonus payments to city employees – $2,000 each to police and firefighters and $1,000 each to other city workers.  It had been previously announced that those on the Hamilton County government payroll will receive $3,000 each.  This is all related to the extra work and stress created by the COVID pandemic and comes from the federal funds distributed to local governments dealing with the pandemic.

What about Fishers?  I posed that question to Mayor Scott Fadness in a podcast interview posted May 17th.  Last year, as the pandemic was very much with us, the mayor points out that city employees did receive a 3% pay raise.

The city also provided a stipend for workers required to work at the job site during the early days of the pandemic.  These employees could not have adjustments made to their work schedules for schools not in session or other personal reasons.  Each of those workers were paid $500 per week extra by the city.

“My inclination, at this point, is that we would not be using (federal COVID) money for additional compensation, but we’re also going to take this slow,” Fadness said.

The mayor made those comments shortly after the city discovered it would receive just under $7 million in federal aid, not the $19 million originally projected.

“We’ve got some discretionary time here,” said the mayor during the podcast.  “The city is in a sound financial position, so there’s no immediate rush to go out and spend that money.”