[RP TownTalk] Mayor and Council Salaries

Sun Dec 3 14:00:10 UTC 2006

Agree. Budget size is a better comparator.

----Original Message----

From: alice.ewen.walker at gmail.com

Date: Dec 3, 2006 5:41 

To: "Rob Oppenheim"

Cc: "TownTalk"

Subj: Re: [RP TownTalk] Mayor and Council Salaries

I'm not opposed to making salary adjustments, but I question the benchmarks used to calculate what is typical for a town our size.   

The town should not use population as its filter for collecting salary benchmarks from other towns.  Annual budget is a better way to compare the scope and responsibilities that our town staff and elected officials are responsible for.  That is what most agencies use to figure out comps.   

Ocean City's mayor and council preside over a $65 million annual budget which funds a $25 million police force, $17 million public works program, $4 million tourism office, etc. with a summer population of 250,000.  Including OC in the average benchmarks for salaries bumps the average up quite a bit. 

If you used the median, instead of the average, then the benchmarks change to more like $500 mayor and $400 council.   

As a side note, Ocean City's compensation for officials, relative to its annual budget, is even tinier than ours. Looks like salary is not the main thing that attracts leadership in that town either.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment. 

- Alice Ewen Walker

On 12/2/06, Rob Oppenheim 
oppenheim at email.com > wrote:
 This Monday evening (12/4/06) the council will vote to change its salary  to $300/month ($600 for mayor).
     Salaries for towns about our size in Maryland average much more -  $600/month for council members and $1000 for mayor. 
 ( http://riverdale-park.org/pipermail/towntalk/2006-September/000901.html  
 ) Is that too much for Riverdale Park?    About 30 towns also pay insurance benefits to council members in   
 addition to a salary. We do not.   We need a visionary council. We need to attract and keep good people  
 on the council in order to create a better town.    I spend 60 hours a month on council work. To do so, I cut back on   
 paid work, which is forcing me to dip into savings. Ouch. Can't keep  doing that, so I am cutting back on the time spent, yet it pains me to   
 put off addressing so many pressing problems.   Do you think that our council should be paid the same as other   
 towns our size, that is, $600/month?  Too much?  Please let us hear from you.   

_______________________________________________
TownTalk mailing list
To post to the list, send mail to 
  TownTalk at riverdale-park.org
TownTalk-request at riverdale-park.org is for automated subscription processing only  

http://riverdale-park.org/mailman/listinfo/towntalk

For more information about Riverdale Park, visit   
http://www.ci.riverdale-park.md.us

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://riverdale-park.org/pipermail/towntalk/attachments/20061203/2553012f/attachment-0003.html>