Dierks City Council

Dierks city employees will receive a five percent pay increase in 2022.  City council members approved the pay raise at their December meeting.  The motion to approve the increases also included setting the salary of Police Chief John McKee at 50 thousand dollars, raising the mayor’s position pay to 25 thousand dollars & setting the hourly pay of water plant employee Ken Jackson to 19 dollars per hour for next year.

Beyond the salary increases, council members also voted to use some of the city’s COVID-19 funds to provide bonuses for employees.  Each current full-time employee who worked during the period from April 1st, 2020, through April 1st, 2021, will receive a one-time payment of two thousand 100 dollars.  Part time police officers who worked during that same 12-month period will receive one dollar per hour, for each hour they worked.  Any Dierks employee who has been hired since April 1st this year, will be entitled to a one-time bonus payment of three hundred dollars.

During that same meeting, the mayor & council members voiced displeasure over the animal control agreement. Dierks, Nashville, & Mineral Springs, along with a couple other towns in southwest Arkansas share expenses for the service.  Dierks Mayor Ronnie Cogburn said his city’s portion will increase from 94 hundred to 10 thousand 516 dollars next year.  Cogburn said there 52 animals caught by animal control this year in Dierks.  The mayor said he has made some suggestions on ways he feels animal control could better serve his town, but those suggestions were ignored.