Austell employees, council members will be paid to use city gym
A plan by Austell Mayor Joe Jerkins to pay city employees and council members to use the city’s $80,000 round-the-clock gym was approved Monday.
Jerkins said he is hopeful the city’s increasing health care costs, now up to $1 million annually, will decline if “we can get” the city’s 100 employees and six elected officials “healthy.”
His plan is to pay $5 for every hour of city gym usage, limited to one hour a day, with annual checks to be issued in early December.
This year’s maximum amount would be around $144,690 for March through November but around $177,550 for each of the following years from January through November.
While the gym also is open to families of city employees, family members would not be paid the $5 incentive, Jerkins said.
The 5,000-square-foot gym opened last spring in a former storage building behind the city’s Threadmill Mall, 5000 Austell-Powder Springs Road, with additional funding from two $5,000 Georgia Municipal Association grants, Fire Chief Tim Williams, chairman of the city’s Wellness Committee, said.
