Jamestown Salary Review Commission presents to City Council (December 12, 2022)
The Jamestown Salary Review Commission has recommended increasing City Council and the Mayor’s salaries.
Members of the commission presented their recommendations to City Council at its work session Monday night.
Commission President Tage Hall said they recognize wage increases are not popular but feel raises are long overdue, “We provided a range for both the Mayor’s salary and council’s salaries. And looking at it, compared to even our area, it’s underpaid. We all kind of came to that agreement that these positions are certainly underpaid. So, we took that seriously and we believe that the time is right. We’ve looked at cost of living adjustments. We think even the council’s salary hasn’t been increased since the mid ’80s.”
The recommendations including raising the Mayor’s salary from $72,000 to between $80,000 to $90,000; increasing City Council members’ stipend from $5,000 to $7,500; and increasing the City Council President’s stipend from $6,000 to $9,000.
City Council’s stipend hasn’t changed since 1984 with the Mayor’s salary remaining the same since 2008.
Corporation Counsel Elliot Raimondo, who also sat on the commission, said if salaries had stayed current with inflation, City Council members would be making $14,000 a year as well as having City Healthcare, “The Mayor would be at $101,000 if we kept up with inflation throughout all of these years. With that being said, I spoke with numerous city council members, on average, and I’d like to say more because many city council members told me more, on average city council members are working 40 hours per month at this, which amounts to $15 per hour with the raises we have proposed for this group.”
Council President Tony Dolce said Council will discuss and vote on the recommendations at its January meetings. If any of the recommendations are passed, the new salaries would not go into effect until January 2024.
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