KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A Kansas City coalition of civil rights and social justice organizations says the city's plan to raise the minimum wage to $13 an hour by 2020 doesn't go far enough and is demanding a November vote on pushing it to $15.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City and a number of other civil rights groups long have had enough signatures to get an initiative for $15 an hour on the ballot. City Attorney Bill Geary said the measure is probably bound for a November vote, with the city paying the election cost.
In May, the City Council delayed a decision on the issue and gave itself a July 16 deadline to decide whether to raise the minimum wage. City leaders held weeks of round-table discussions with business interests and $15-an-hour advocates in search of a compromise, but neither side would budge.
The City Council voted July 16 to raise the base wage to $8.50 an hour on Aug. 24 and $13 an hour by 2020, The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/1JIZf7o ) reported.
Missourians for Fair Wages, representing restaurant, hotel and other business associations in the state, responded with a petition drive challenging that decision. It has until Aug. 25 to collect enough signatures to force the City Council to either repeal the ordinance or put it to a public vote sometime next year.
Like the business group, the coalition urging a November vote also was not happy with the move to raise the base wage to $13 - but for different reasons.
Vernon Howard Jr., president of the SCLC of Greater Kansas City, said Thursday raising the minimum wage to $13 per hour by 2020 wasn't enough.
"In our estimation, it is inadequate and insufficient to raise the working poor out of poverty," he said.
The issue falls into the laps of a City Council that has several new members being sworn in this weekend.
Questions remain about the legality of the new law because of disagreements over a 1998 law that banned counties and cities in the state's most-populated counties from enacting minimum wages higher than those set by the state.
Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed a bill earlier this month that would have prohibited such ordinances from being passed after Aug. 28.