O’Connor on compensation
Longboat employs fewer than 20 police officers, fewer than 36 firefighter/paramedics, provides no housing, no library, no sewage treatment, only secondary/tertiary water treatment and maintains only a few miles of streets. CREDIT: Peter O’Connor
PETER O’CONNOR
Contributing Columnist
oconnor@lbknews.com
Several months ago, after a visit to Phoenix, I opined on immigration. That was at the time of passage and signing of the Arizona immigration law. My thoughts on that subject stand as written. But while in Phoenix, I looked at municipal government with a view toward contrasting that large city with our small town. I found there wasn’t enough there for a meaningful column. Maybe there is.
Some weeks ago my government contact in Phoenix (actually an ex-cop and retired immigration officer with an Master of Public Administration) alerted me to a situation developing in the town of Bell, Calif. The word was out on what looked like excessive pay for that western city manager and his police chief. I filed that away in my memory bank. Now there has been cable TV coverage of this Bell situation. Most recently the Wall Street Journal has taken this up in a story focusing on city pay. I shouldn’t resist this opportunity any further.
The Wall Street Journal notes that the ICMA (International City/County Management Association) reports that pay for city managers nationally has remained around $100,000 for the past five years. Looking for some comparables in that story (from Aug. 5, 2010), I find Atascadero, Calif., halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The city has 28,000 residents, a $16 million operating budget, and the city manager makes $157,173 a year. He has taken a 3 percent pay cut for the second year in a row.
Pressures on municipal salaries have grown in California, mostly I suppose because of the disclosures in Bell where the city manager was paid nearly $800,000 per year. That pressure is growing nationally; we can expect the same scrutiny. I find there are no national standards for city manager pay. The League of California Cities is reported to be meeting to develop guidelines for managers’ salaries. Of course many managers, including ours, are employed and paid on a contract basis.
Back to my Phoenix contrasts. It is a huge city in our desert Southwest, as you know. It has had a council-manager form of government since 1913. Just for understanding its scope: Phoenix employs nearly 1,800 firefighters, more than 3,000 police officers; provides public housing, libraries, parks and recreation (including eight golf courses), a convention center of 880,000 square feet; operates a 525 bus fleet; collects solid waste from 387,000 residences, operates city landfills; maintains 4,800 miles of streets, 404,000 water service connections; operates six water treatment plants and a water reclamation plant, providing 106 billion gallons per year.
I recite these metrics, first because they are impressive, and second because all of this and more are under the purview of a paid appointed city manager—one of very long service, recently retired. His replacement is paid $237,000 per year according to the available data. Interestingly the city managers’ salaries of other large cities are: Dallas, $267,000; Irving, Texas, $428,000; Scottsdale, Ariz., $190,000 (recently fired).
For obvious contrasts, Longboat Key employs fewer than 20 police officers, fewer than 36 firefighter/paramedics, provides no housing, no library, no sewage treatment, only secondary/tertiary water treatment and maintains only a few miles of streets. Obviously we are a small town. Our town manager costs our town just under $250,000 per year. Please don’t quibble with the number; that is about right. Is this figure out of line? I really don’t know. Perhaps we have higher standards; perhaps we want the best. I certainly think so. Some might not agree.
Some years ago, one Town Commission colleague and I voted to deny an increase in compensation to the current town manager. I didn’t think he was overpaid then, I just didn’t think the increase was justified in that situation. As some of you might recall, I was severely castigated, even in these pages, for that vote. So I surmise that the sentiment around here is for a highly paid town manager.
In all these discussions of municipal government, it is important—no, it is necessary—to be aware of the standards applied nationally as well as locally. As I have written in these columns, there are bright people in government. We have many of them here. We just need to be able to discern rationally what their public service is worth.
Let’s do it.
