Last month, Vancouver city councilors sent the Salary Review Commission a message: Try again.
The city councilors voted to reject the commission’s decision to increase the mayor’s pay by 117 percent and boost councilors’ wages.
“It was loud and clear the numbers that were voted on aren’t going to work for the community,” said Commissioner Magan Reed, who initially voted in favor of the pay hike. “I’m not interested in putting those numbers back through.”
The salary commission, which is made up of five volunteers, is in the midst of scheduling another series of meetings to once again address the mayor and city councilors’ pay. They are tentatively scheduled to start meeting this month.
“If we have to start from scratch so we can make sure people’s voices are heard and we do the right thing, I’m completely OK with that,” Reed said.
Reed is hoping more community members participate in this round of meetings.
“You get really vocal people on both sides of the issue, but it’s hard to know what the majority of the community feels,” she said.
The commission met seven times before approving the pay raises. In a 3-2 vote in April, the commission increased the mayor’s pay from $27,600 a year to $60,000. It also boosted the mayor pro tem’s annual pay from $24,000 to $37,500 (a 56 percent increase) and the rest of the city council’s pay from $21,600 to $32,496 a year (a 50 percent increase).
Shortly after the April 20 vote, two former Vancouver mayors — Royce Pollard and Bruce Hagensen — and former city councilor Pat Jollota spearheaded an effort to repeal the pay increases. They collected 3,049 signatures to qualify it for the ballot. Because the measure qualified, councilors had the ability to address the matter themselves and decided to reject the raises.
Stan Girt, one of the commissioners who voted against the increase, said he’s hoping the numbers “will be a bit more reasonable” this time around.
“I hope all the members of the commission have heard the voice of the people,” he said, adding “but we’ll see.”
Girt hopes the commissioners consider comparable cities when analyzing what a fair wage increase would look like.
Vancouver has a city manager form of government, so City Manager Eric Holmes oversees the administrative duties and is paid $210,000.
The mayor is charged with presiding over city council meetings and serves as the city’s figurehead at events. The mayor and city council set policy and represent the city on various boards.
In other Washington cities with a city manager form of government — Bellevue, Yakima, Spokane Valley, Kirkland, Kennewick, Lakewood, Olympia, Pasco, Richland and Shoreline — the average monthly salary is $1,413 for mayors and $1,467 for councilors, The Columbian reported previously. Vancouver’s pay is already 62 percent above average for mayors and 23 percent above average for councilors, the salary commission was told.
Girt also supports the idea of a 2.5 to 3 percent raise for the elected officials, suggesting it’s closer to what the bulk of the city’s employees would receive.
Those who advocated pay increases said a higher salary would attract a more diverse pool of applicants and create a pathway for some who might otherwise have a hard time running, such as a single mom, an opportunity.
Commissioner Barry Hemphill, who voted against the raises, disagrees.
“We have diversity on the council (now),” he said. “The commission’s job is to set the salary and not to do social engineering.”
Longer term, Hemphill said, the city should reconsider the salary commission’s role, either amending the charter to cap what the salary commission can do or abolish it completely.
“We could have set (the salary) at $1 million a year,” he said. “There are no boundaries.”
Commissioners Thomas Hackett and MarCine Miles could not be reached for comment.
