Housing authority raises maintenance on-call pay to $150 weekly

The New Smyrna Beach Housing Authority voted to increase the weekly on-call stipend for maintenance staff to $150, approving Resolution 2026-4 during its March 9 meeting.

Director Theresa Pope presented the recommendation, saying the authority surveyed other housing agencies and “the new rates for going rates for housing authorities are between $150 and $350 a week,” and recommended the board adopt the $150 weekly stipend as the lowest comparable amount. Committee member (speaker 2) moved to approve the resolution and Chair (speaker 1) seconded; the motion passed with all members voting in favor.

Pope described how the on-call rotation works: “our maintenance crew keeps an on-call phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for one week on, one week off. We give them a $50 on-call or a $50 pay to carry that phone for that week” (transcript remarks corrected for consistency with the board’s reported benchmarking). She said the updated stipend better reflects current market practice and estimated it would cover roughly 2.7 hours of expected weekly call time per property.

The board did not amend the resolution during the meeting and recorded no opposing votes. The change takes effect upon implementation by staff and will be reflected in payroll and personnel procedures. The board did not detail an effective date in the meeting transcript.