BANGOR, Maine — The City Council will decide Monday whether the city of 33,000 residents will create a local minimum wage that would increase pay for Bangor’s lowest paid workers to $9.75 per hour by 2018 and tie future minimum-wage changes to inflation.
But before they vote, the nine councilors must wade through a host of proposed amendments and clarifications. The outcome of the vote remains uncertain with a single councilor expected to decide the issue.
Supporters have argued the wage hike is necessary because of inaction at the state and federal levels and the need to create a livable wage for all Mainers.
Opponents have responded that minimum-wage jobs aren’t meant to provide a living and that a wage hike would burden small businesses and lead to fewer entry-level opportunities for those joining the workforce.
The council will consider the issue during its meeting at 7:30 p.m. Monday on the third floor of City Hall.
“I think it will be a long meeting,” Councilor Joe Baldacci, who first proposed the ordinance in February, said Friday.
If approved, the ordinance would incrementally increase the local minimum wage from the statewide minimum of $7.50 per hour to $8.25 per hour on Jan. 1, 2016, $9 per hour on Jan. 1, 2017, and $9.75 per hour on Jan. 1, 2018.
Beginning on Jan. 1, 2019, the minimum wage would fluctuate from year to year with the Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation.
Baldacci says he still faces an uphill battle to see his ordinance enacted. He must convince Councilor Ben Sprague, who is expected to be the deciding vote, to support the ordinance.
Sprague remained undecided on the issue Friday, but he has raised multiple questions and concerns about the proposed wage hike he said he hopes to address during Monday’s meeting.
“I think Joe and I agree on the need for [a] minimum wage increase, [the] question is how,” Sprague told the Bangor Daily News on Friday. “I admire his passion on the issue and think it’s been a great public debate.”
The state has not increased the minimum wage since 2009. If the state’s first uniform minimum wage enacted at $1 per hour in 1959 had kept pace with inflation, it would be $8.20 per hour today, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Among the concerns raised by Sprague was whether the ordinance would apply only to businesses located in Bangor or include out-of-town businesses doing work in the city.
As written, the ordinance applies to all work conducted within the city limits.
“‘Employer’ shall include but not be limited to the City of Bangor,” it says.
Baldacci said Friday his intent was to apply the new minimum wage only to Bangor-based businesses, not outside businesses doing work in the city. That issue will have to be clarified on Monday, he said.
Meanwhile, to gain a favorable vote from City Councilor Gibran Graham — who has expressed conditional support for the proposal — Baldacci and the rest of the council must work through at least three other amendments.
Graham has proposed amendments that would eliminate language in the ordinance exempting tipped workers from receiving the new minimum wage as well as exempting workers under the age of 18 and anyone who works for an employer with fewer than five employees.
Baldacci said Friday he has no objection to including tipped workers or workers under the age of 18 in the proposed minimum wage, but he was still undecided about the third amendment designed to protect very small businesses.
To account for tipped workers, Baldacci has proposed an amendment similar to state law that would have employers pay tipped workers a base pay of half the new minimum wage, about $4.13 per hour.
Employers would have to make up the difference for tipped workers whose hourly wages and tips do not average the proposed $8.25 per hour for the pay period.
The proposal mirrors state law, which allows employers to pay tipped workers as little as $3.75 per hour — half the statewide minimum wage — and make up the difference for tipped workers who do not average the statewide minimum of $7.50 per hour.
In addition to those amendments, the council must also work through proposals from opponents to delay implementation of the minimum wage until the start of the city’s next fiscal year on July 1, 2016, and to send the proposal back to committee for further review.
Regardless of the outcome Monday, Baldacci said he is pleased with the healthy debate that has occurred.
“I’m happy to have four solid councilors [in support],” he said. “I mean I’ve come a long way from February on this issue.
“We’ve encouraged a discussion that’s not just in Bangor but is all around the state. It’s been part of a broader discussion, and I think it’s important to keep pushing these issues until we get something done,” he said.
Baldacci’s proposal comes as the Maine People’s Alliance, a liberal leaning advocacy group, collects signatures to force a citizen-initiated referendum on the November 2016 ballot that, if approved, would increase the statewide minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2020.
It also comes in the wake of a 6-3 vote in Portland that will increase the minimum wage there to $10.68 by 2017. The Portland council has since scheduled a referendum for Nov. 3 that will let voters decide whether to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour.
If his ordinance fails, Baldacci said he will work for the statewide referendum to increase the minimum wage.
Follow Evan Belanger on Twitter at @evanbelanger.