Though some city council members questioned the ordinance’s legality, North Liberty became the latest Johnson County township to accommodate next month’s county-wide minimum wage increase at a meeting held Thursday evening.
“Is raising the minimum wage a good idea? Yeah, that’s obvious, I think,” Council Member Brian Wayson told The Gazette. “My concern is the process that we took to get here, that there wasn’t a broader discussion on the part of the county.”
The North Liberty City Council also expressed additional concerns about cities’ lack of input on the ordinance and the potentially difficult logistics of enforcing the measure, but were generally supportive off the county-wide push to raise the standard of living.
Speaking with the Press-Citizen, North Liberty resident Betty Hughes-Fayne said of the wage hike,”I feel like it’s important because the cost of living constantly increases and we’re just out here trying to live and survive.”
The ordinance will increase the minimum wage in three 95-cent increments, with the first scheduled for Nov. 1, when the minimum wage will jump from $7.25 to $8.20. Ultimately, the measure would raise the minimum wage in Johnson County to $10.10 by 2017.
