FITCHBURG — The City Council recently voted in favor of raising the salary of City Clerk Joanna Bilotta-Simeone, 7-3.
Opponents of the raise were Councilors Kevin Starr, Paul Beauchemin and Joseph Bowen. Beauchemin wanted to make it clear to other councilors that the city would be looking at a $6 million deficit and that he could not support the raise when he had already told other employees he couldn’t support their raises. It would make him inconsistent and hypocritical to vote for a raise for the city clerk.
Council President Anthony Zarrella said that it was about fairness and parity. “The city clerk is paid significantly less than other department heads,” he explained. “When there is a vast disparity, it has to be remedied.”
He averred that $12,000 would not balance the budget but would ensure that the council is willing to pay fairly for the excellent work being done by City Clerk Joanna Bilotta-Simeone, whose job falls under the purview of the City Council. He added that the city clerk should not be excluded from discussions simply because she doesn’t have a union advocating for her.
Bilotta-Simeone is listed as currently making $109,936 in 2025 in city records.
“Joanna has us [the City Council] and I am determined to see her fairly compensated for the work she does going above and beyond every day,” Zarrella said.
Councilor Amy Green spoke up on behalf of the raise by saying: “It’s up to us as the body that oversees the city clerk that this is the year we have to do the right thing.”
Councilor Marisa Fleming said she “was going back and forth and whether to support it.”
Bowen said that the city faces a $9 million deficit in the next five years. “Approving this increase moves us in the wrong direction,” he said. “These decisions add up and create pressure in raising salaries across the board.”
Zarrella spoke on the point raised that if the city clerk got a raise, then other departments would need raises across the board. He did not agree with this logic and maintained that this raise would only address the disparity of the city clerk having not received a raise since she was hired.
He said he would be surprised to know if another department head was underpaid to the same degree as the city clerk. He does not believe this one move would make or break the city’s budget woes. Zarella said that he believed every city clerk has been underpaid. He concluded that the longer the council waits, the harder it would be and that there would be more reasons to not do it.
Beauchemin said he didn’t mind properly compensated employees but this kind of raise doesn’t happen in the real world.
Zarrella responded that this “isn’t the straw to break the camel’s back.” If the city loses good employees because they aren’t treating them right or compensating them, it would affect the city and make it harder to claw back to stability after leaving the budget crunch, he said.
Councilor Derrick Cruz briefly returned and said the issue with the budget was health care.
Beauchemin said that if the city doesn’t pay employees, they would leave.
Courtesy of the “Fitchburg Central” Facebook Page, administered by John Hisman.
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