Of position and pay - the position and salary of the Mayor of Wallingford

It's Sunday morning and a new "From Wallingford" article has been written in the Record Journal - today's was by Stephen Knight; you can read it in full detail here.

I am not going to comment on the whole posting because it is an opinion piece (and it's a good piece - there are parts to it I agree with) but I will make some points where I feel like the perspective of some of the facts there are not being shown in completeness.

In the piece, Steve indicated "I write this from Portland, Maine, the population of which is just over 66,000 people, or, put another way, approximately half as large as Wallingford."

So with respect to that comment, the present population of Portland, Maine according to http://www.city-data.com/  as of 2010 is in fact 66,194. Having said that, the same site shows Wallingford's population at 44,881 as of July 2009 so Portland has about 48 percent more people than Wallingford.

The site also shows that the March 2012 cost of living index in Portland at 104.7 (near average, U.S. average is 100).

Wallingford's is listed at 131.1 (high, U.S. average is 100).

Portland's estimated median household income in 2009 was $42,010.

Wallingford's estimated median household income in 2009 was $71,117

As I discuss the pay for the position I am going to start to talk about the position only and not the person in the position. I will move to that after.

If we actually want to compare the salary of the position of the Mayor of Portland to position the Mayor of Wallingford we can start to look simply at the difference of the cost of living; being that it is basically 26 percent higher, then the salary for the position of the Mayor of Wallingford should be at least $82,407.00 on those merits alone.

Now I will discuss the person in the position.

Tenure of position also affects pay; anyone in a position with 28 years of experience (and it will be 30 by the time this present term ends), the pay would most likely be higher simply due to time on the job and the number of years experience and expertise brought to the position.

That factor was not discussed. If it were, you'd need to also discuss the following additional information (as provided by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_Portland,_Maine):

Mayor Dickinson was first elected to office in 1983.

Since that time there have been 27 people holding the position of Mayor in Portland Maine (unless I am reading the information there incorrectly).

It is probably important to note the following as well:

"From 1923 until 2011, city councilors chose one of themselves each year to serve as mayor, a primarily ceremonial position. On November 8, 2011, former State Senator and candidate for U.S. Congress Michael F. Brennan was elected. On December 5, 2011, he was sworn in as the first citizen-elected mayor in 88 years."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Maine_mayoral_election,_2011

Anyone that works anywhere knows that new hires (for lack of a better term when you ARE talking about an elected position) will come in at a mid range for salary and grow within the pay range (and the page range will tend to scale upwards slightly for cost of living increases over time) as they stay within a role.

These two factors should mean that Mayor Dickinson, the individual, should be in an upper percentile of the job's pay scale, but let's simply put that aside so as not to put in too much math here.

The fact of the matter is that when a change of pay has been incorporated into the position of Mayor in the town budget, his position, he has vetoed the budget and frozen his own pay for nearly a decade now.

There have been years where a pay raise had not been included but there were years it was and those budgets were vetoed. In total from both sets of actions this has kept the salary for the position of Mayor of Wallingford fairly static for a decade.

The administrative aid to the Mayor of Wallingford earns $72,210.00 and the Mayor himself earns $73,140.00 - something here is clearly out of proportion when you review this forgetting for a moment that more than half of the department heads (and some of the assistant department heads) that all directly report to the Mayor of Wallingford not only earn more than "the boss" but they do so in the six figure range.

You may argue that those people earning six figure salaries in a municipal position are overpaid but that really is a different discussion. I will leave that sidebar with "you get what you pay for and if you want someone with skill and experience to do a "Class A" job you're going to have to offer the right salary for the skills in demand for a position.

The bottom line to that is that so many of them earn so much more than their boss - a few of them earn twice as much.

When discussing this static pay for the position of Mayor of Wallingford over the last decade we are not talking about taking a forced pay freeze or pay cut like most of us have had to deal with in the private sector over the past five years with the drop in the economy. This is a scenario where the individual being given a meager cost of living bump in pay (less than 3 percent every two years) has simply stated "no thanks, I don't want the additional $2,200.00 added to my salary."

Who does that? What motive lends to someone refusing a cost of living adjustment?

I want one person to come forward that can tell me they received an annual review, was granted a 3 percent raise, and then said to their employer "no thank you, please keep that little bit of extra money and fortify the business - it is privilege enough to work here."

Before someone starts on how wonderful it is for the Mayor to lead by example to save the taxpayers some money let me make a few of points.

An additional $2,200.00 annual salary change (one time) against a $145 million dollar budget doesn't even move the mill rate against what you and I are taxed.

If the mill rate could be further factionalized for such a small adjustment, a person with an average assessed home (at $191,000) would pay an additional eleven cents in taxes to support a cost of living adjustment such as this.

Compounded over ten years at three percent that would be a grand total of $1.30. You read that right - ONE DOLLAR AND THIRTY CENTS.

The voters that put Mayor Dickinson back into office every two years should certainly be able to see that the value of an additional $1.30 is money well spent on a person, in their opinion, doing so much wonderful stuff for Wallingford.

At the rate of three percent a year compounded, the present salary of the position of the Mayor of Wallingford would be $97,044.00 - much more in line with what it should be and as stated - worth $1.30 extra over a ten years' time.

Next year is the only year (an election year) where the salary of the position of the Mayor of Wallingford can be reviewed and there will be a discussion regarding reviewing what other Mayors earn in comparable towns; let's see where that discussion goes at the time.

I for one, as a Wallingford Town Councilor, will be looking to move the pay for the position of Mayor for the Town of Wallingford in line to where it would be given the cost of living adjustments I have outlined above and in comparison to other Mayor salaries of other comparatively sized municipalities near our cost of living index.

If Mayor Dickinson is re-elected as he has been successfully for 15 consecutive electoral terms, and he doesn't want the adjustment in annual salary for the position he was elected for, he can always cut a check for the difference (and effectively hold his pay at the present level) to a worthy charity.

Perhaps he could donate it back to the town; not so that it sits in the general fund as an unaccepted pay increase (as we all know that money would not get spent) but rather in the form of a check donated, so that the "cash" is granted and spent.

I am sure the Wallingford school system or Parks and Recreation would not turn down a donation in the amount of nearly $24,000.00.

Either way I presume, the 2013-2014 budget discussion next April ought to be interesting.