Yelm City Councilors and city administrators discussed financing an additional police officer in 2023, as well as the costs for the 2023 Pride Fest and Drag Show events and the Prairie Days Parade at a City Council study session and budget amendment discussion Aug. 1.
Yelm Finance Director Stephanie Nanavich discussed frontloading the expense of hiring a 2024 police officer to this year due to openings and potential candidates. The expenditure is in the amount of $22,000.
The vacant position in the department has half a year of available salary and benefits for the remainder of the year. Specific costs would include $12,000 for remaining salary and benefits for six months, as well as $10,000 for the police academy, uniform and equipment expenses.
“We just need a little more for the introduction of bringing this new person in and paying them through the end of the year,” Nanavich said.
Nanavich added that the request for the police officer is the only one at the moment. It was a proposed topic for discussion at the Tuesday, Aug. 8 finance committee meeting.
Yelm City Administrator Todd Stancil discussed costs of June’s Pride Fest and Drag Show events and the Prairie Days event.
The total cost of the Pride Fest for Yelm employees, including police officers and parks employees, was $8,385.39. The total cost included officers and employees overtime hours, as well as their meals.
“The police chief and Stephanie (Nanavich) and her department worked in finalizing the impacts of the pride fest and drag show that followed,” Stancil said. “We just added the Prairie Days event for comparison purposes to give you an idea that Prairie Days is a city-sponsored event that is a parade. A lot of that cost from Prairie Days is from the parade and the number of officers and public services employees needed to happen.”
The Pride Festival and Drag Show saw 110.66 total hours of police overtime, which cost $7,363.28, while only a quarter of an hour was worked by a parks employee for $13.51. Food for the police officers on hand cost an additional $1,022 for the city. Stancil made it clear that these costs pertained just to the City of Yelm.
The Prairie Days event saw 50.01 total hours of police overtime at the event, worth $3,436.74. An additional $832.31 was paid to parks and sewer employees for their contributions at the event.
It was noted that no employees were fed at the Prairie Days celebration.
“Prairie Days stays pretty consistent,” Stancil said. “It takes almost the exact same number of officers to close the roads down. Same with public works staff. As long as the parade route doesn’t change drastically, the number of employees needed to close roads down won’t change. The only thing that will change year to year is the overtime rate. There will be some fluctuation in that.”
