ST. CLAIRSVILLE — St. Clairsville City Council voted Thursday to limit the mayor and service director’s ability to make salary adjustments for city employees.

With Mayor Kathryn Thalman and Service Director Scott Harvey absent from the meeting, the council unanimously passed an ordinance suspending a section of its city personnel policy and procedure manual that stated the mayor and/or city service manager “shall make all changes to payroll, personnel or operational records necessitated by changes or additions to position descriptions.

The ordinance temporarily suspends any salary adjustments until other arrangements are made, such as the creation of a new pay scale.

The vote came after Harvey added human resources duties to the job description of his senior executive administrative assistant, Elaina Moscato. Those added responsibilities came with an $18,000 raise that St. Clairsville council members claimed they didn’t approve.

In February, council member Kristi Lipscomb asked law director Joe Vavra if it was legal for Harvey to give Moscato a raise without council’s approval. Council president Jim Velas said that Vavra was not able to attend Thursday’s special meeting – called following a 45-minute closed-door session at Monday’s regularly scheduled meeting – but did inform Velas that Harvey did nothing illegal when giving Moscato a raise without council’s approval.

“It was legal, but that doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do, and there is a huge difference there,” council member Terra Butler said. “I still feel like it was an abuse of power, if they even had the power, which I don’t think that there was the power to do it.”

Lipscomb added that, even if Harvey didn’t break any laws, she believes that it shouldn’t have been done without council’s approval. Council member Lucien Murzyn said that he understands council doesn’t like the way it was done but wants to know what council wants to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“What is our goal now? Is it to define a base scale for the future?” Murzyn asked.

Butler replied that her ultimate goal is for council to define a base pay scale for all city employees.

She added that, without a pay scale requirement, there is essentially no limit to how high Harvey or Thalman can set the pay of any city employee.

Thalman was not at the meeting but, when later contacted for comment, she said that she is disappointed that council feels that it cannot trust Harvey to make the right decisions. She believes he has consistently made good decisions and does a lot of research into every decision he makes.

Thalman added it is council’s responsibility to come up with a pay scale and it has not presented one to her or Harvey.

“What they’re doing is usurping power from the service director, they’re trying to do administrative work, and that’s not their job,” Thalman said.

Lipscomb said that she believes Harvey misused taxpayer dollars by giving Moscato a raise without council’s approval.

Following the vote, Velas said that he believes the next step should be for the city’s finance committee, Vavra and Harvey should meet to come up with a pay scale that everyone can be happy with.

Harvey was not able to be reached for comment.