Orangeville approves $25 hourly pay for animal-control on-call responses

Orangeville City Council approved an increase to animal-control pay on March 13, moving from a $250 monthly on-call stipend to a $25-per-hour wage for personnel who respond to animal-control calls.

Council members voted to change the pay structure during the meeting; the motion passed by recorded "Aye" votes from Kevin, Moran, Doug, Carrie and Tracy.

Council discussion explained the operational change: instead of a fixed monthly stipend, staff said the city will pay $25 per hour to whichever animal-control responder answers a call. "...it's gonna be a straight wage of $25 an hour, whoever answers the call," one staff speaker explained during the discussion. The amendment increases the animal-control salary line by $2,000 in the amended budget to cover the change.

Council members and staff discussed how the hours will be tracked. The city intends to use iWORKS, a work-order/time-tracking program, to record call times and compute pay. One speaker raised a question about minimum billing increments for short calls; staff replied that the iWORKS system is expected to calculate fractional hours and that employees should record actual times on calls.

Officials said the change aims both to distribute on-call duties among multiple responders (Travis, Seth and Andy were named as responders in the transcript) and to provide more direct pay when staff are dispatched. The transcript records the plan to rotate responders on a preexisting call list so that the person who responds for a call receives hourly pay for the time worked.

The council also said additional ordinance or resolution votes tied to animal-control wages and related administrative changes will be handled at a subsequent meeting; the wage change itself was approved at this meeting.

Vote record on the wage motion lists five "Aye" votes and no recorded nays; the chair declared the motion passed.