Biloxi’s long-serving municipal employees will share in nearly $430,000 in extra pay on Friday, part of the city’s $760,000 longevity pay program this year.
About 490 employees will receive lump-sum payments, while another 103 received payments throughout the year, amounting to nearly $330,000 this year.
The program, designed to foster employee retention, provides money for each month of service to the city, whose workforce averages 10.75 years of service.
This year, under a plan passed by the City Council after a mayoral veto, employees are receiving $6 for nine months of each year of service and $15 for three months of each year of service.
Next year, employees will receive $15 for each month of service, meaning the program will jump in cost to more than $1.186 million, based on the current number of city employees. Last year, employees received about $276,000 in lump sum payments in a program that cost $433,359 overall.
