Dear All,

There is going to be a proposal coming before the full Council on Monday night about a pay raise that would take effect in the first part of next year.  The proposal would increase the base salary of the Council from $11,400 to at least $24,115 – more than double.  Remember, in addition to the base salary Councillors received $112 for each full Council Meeting they attend as well as $62 for each Committee Meeting.  Council Meetings usually last about 2 hours and depending on the Committee, would average an hour to an hour and a half – many times less, sometimes more depending on the agenda and the number of questions asked.

So Councillors are getting paid for the meetings they attend and that pay is quite generous on a per hour basis.  Granted, if you do your job correctly you do read and learn more about the proposal that will be coming before your committee as well as the full council ahead of time, but even at that the pay for meetings is good.  This is not a full time job, and most Councillors have full time employment.  Ones that do not have full time jobs are mainly retired.

If you break down the new proposal it would be like a person with a full time job making $11.59 per hour for a 40 hour week.  That is not taking into account meeting pay.  Put that to a part time job at 20 hours a week and it comes to $23.18 an hour, again not taking into consideration meeting pay.  So this would just be pay for things that you do outside of any meetings.

When we ran for office we knew what the pay was.  I am not sure that anyone ran thinking about the money, but  mainly wanted to make a difference in our City.  I have even talked to candidates that told me they didn’t know we got paid when they decided to run.

This proposal came through “at the last minute” before the last Rules and Public Policy meeting of the year.  It was added to the agenda late in the afternoon of that meeting, while normally the deadline for putting items on the agenda is at least the Friday before a meeting.  It had been introduced the night before at a full Council meeting.  Not much time for Councillors to read over and learn more about it.  Not time for the public to weigh in.

I would like to know how you feel about this proposal before the vote on Monday.  Please let me know your feelings on more than doubling the Council base salary (Council Meetings and Committee Meetings pay is not in this proposal at this time so it will stay the same currently) for the new Council coming in next year.  I would appreciate your feedback over the weekend.

When responding please either give your address or neighborhood that you live in.  I am most interested in knowing how those who live in District 6 feel and I know that many of you who receive this do not live in my district.  Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Sincerely,

Janice McHenry

City-County Councillor District 6