PEA RIDGE — Decreasing the salary for an inexperienced city official is not unique to Pea Ridge.
Current Bethel Heights Mayor Fred Jack did just that this year and former Rogers mayor John Sampier set a pay scale enumerating beginning salaries for all city officials, including elected officials.
How cities pay elected officials varies, but is governed by state statute.
Cities of the first class, cities of the second class (which Pea Ridge is) and incorporated towns may increase the salary of an official during the term for which the official has been elected or appointed and may be decreased during the term only if requested by the official. (Statute 14-42-113)
Sampier served from mid-term 1981 to 1998 and during his tenure developed a pay scale for elected city officials.
Sampier said that when hetook office after Jack Cole resigned, he was quickly faced with budget meetings and realized there was not a pay scale for elected officials.
“I was given two sheets of worn-out papers with positions and salaries on it ... not even all the hired positions were on it,” Sampier said. “I asked ‘Is this it?’ and they replied ‘That’s all we know about.’”
“I realized that wasn’t right, that we needed a pay system for hiring and retaining people as far as the public sector in northwest Arkansas,” Sampier recalled, adding that he used a consulting company to evaluate how pay scales were derived in other places. “We did a survey and came up with a matrix.”
Sampier said the budget listed beginning salaries with a step system for raises that went out about five years and was figured for each of the four elected positions - mayor, city clerk, city attorney and city judge - as well. “We used Municipal League numbers as well.”
“It was in place for years so anyone who wanted to run for one of those positions knew what the salary would be when they came in office,” Sampier said. “Frankly, there wasn’t a lot of competition over the years.”
When Sampier left office in 1998, his ending salary was about $63,000, he said, adding that the salary for the new term beginning 1999 was about $40,000.
Rogers Mayor Steve Womack, elected in 1998 and taking office Jan. 1, 1999, remembers, but disagrees with Sampier. “I thought it was patently unfair,” Womack said, adding that he quickly removed the pay scale with step increases from the city’s budget and that the winner of this year’s election will receive the same salary Womack currently earns - $115,000. “They did it that way to guarantee raises. We don’t have automatic raises.”
Womack likened the election of a mayor to hiring a chief executive officer of a large corporation. “Elected officials should never be part of a pay scale,” Womack said, adding that he said he did establish a pay scale for “general labor” city employees with a beginning salary for persons hired to “back fill” a position when someone quits.
“The city of Rogers is the only one that way,” Womack said. He said the salaries for elected officials are established every even numbered year by the Finance Committee before the filing period for elected offices. Womack is not seeking re-election as he is running for the 3rd Congressional District seat.
Bethel Heights Mayor Fred Jack, not seeking re-election, said the City Council in his town reduced the salary for the mayor for the coming term as well.
“I’m an eighth-year mayor. We realized that a rookie, someone on their first term, shouldn’t earn as much as someone with experience,” Jack said. “They (City Council members) all agreed with that.” Jack said his Council is comprised of three business owners, one person high in corporate business and one councilman seeking the mayor’s seat, unopposed, who had to recuse himself from the vote.
“They were in full agreement,” Jack said, of the reduction from $52,000 to a proposed salary of $41,000, although the budget for 2011 has not been approved.
The mayor in Bethel Heights is also the Wastewater and Street Department superintendent. The incoming mayor has been the building inspector for a number of years, Jack said, and will continue in that position. “We’ve got money invested in his training for code enforcement,” Jack said.
News, Pages 1 on 10/20/2010