Visalia city employees will receive a one-time bonus payment to help with inflation and the rising costs of goods and services.
The Visalia City Council unanimously approved the bonus payments on Monday.
Full time employees – which includes, regular, probationary, at-will and contract employees – will receive $2,000.
Hourly employees who work a “consistent schedule” will receive $500, while seasonal and minimal hours employees will take home an extra $200.
All employees will receive the bonus with their Feb. 18 paycheck.
Before the bonus was approved, City Manager Leslie Caviglia urged the council to pass the resolution because of the increased expenses city employees are facing with the rising inflation rate.
“As you know, it’s been a long stretch here with work that we’ve asked of our employees through COVID and everything else, but more importantly, too, we have seen a significant rise in the inflation rate, which is far beyond what we originally anticipated,” Caviglia said.
The total cost of the payments will run Visalia $1.25 million. Of that total, $722,000 will be paid from the general fund while the rest will come from special revenues funds, internal services funds and enterprise funds.
The city council first discussed distributing one-time bonuses during a closed session meeting last December.
