The Little Rock Board of Directors, in discussing a proposal to raise the mayor’s pay, voiced concern Tuesday night about whether that salary is in compliance with a state law that requires that it be “comparable” with that of other municipal officials.
The proposal would give Mayor Mark Stodola a raise of nearly $20,000, making his $160,000 annual salary the same as the $179,208 currently paid to City Manager Bruce Moore. Several directors said they’d like a definition of the word “comparable” and asked whether the city is in danger of being sued if it does not give the mayor a raise.
“I don’t know what comparable is, but I know what it is when I see that it’s not comparable,” said Ward 4 Director Brad Cazort.
City Attorney Tom Carpenter said a resident or the mayor could sue the city over the salary discrepancy. He added that in the event of a lawsuit, he would have an easier time in court defending the current salaries if the percent difference was “not a double-digit differential.”
Stodola and Moore recused themselves from the discussion at the board’s agenda meeting Tuesday night. The board is to vote on the proposal at its meeting next Tuesday.
“This would not be an automatic raise or a retroactive raise,” Cazort said of the proposed ordinance. “We would still have to vote to increase [it] in the future if the board so wished.”
Earlier this month, Cazort requested an opinion from the city attorney’s office on whether the city is out of compliance with the state statute. He then wrote the proposed ordinance and requested that it be put on the agenda.
Carpenter said the only definition he could offer for what constitutes “ compara-ble” pay among employees is that the amounts should be similar.
He said that because the state statute uses the language “municipal employee” rather than city manager, the board could consider the pay of other city executives in deciding whether the mayor’s salary is in compliance with the law. He recommended that the board consider only the pay of executives like the director of the airport commission or Little Rock Wastewater Utility, who would be considered department heads if they were city employees.
Ron Mathieu, executive director of Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, is paid $197,600; and Reggie Corbitt, chief executive officer of the Little Rock Wastewater Utility, makes $185,099 this year. Carpenter wrote in his opinion that because the mayor’s pay is more than 10 percent below Moore’s and more than 20 percent below that of the other officials’, he believes the mayor’s salary is out of compliance.
“We are walking along untrod paths,” Carpenter said. “We are the Lewis and Clark for Arkansas cities in regards to this salary issue.”
Seven other Arkansas cities have city manager or city administrator forms of government, but all of those mayors are part time, according to the Arkansas Municipal League.Only Little Rock has a form of government where a mayor and a city manager share the day-to-day responsibilities of government on a full-time basis.
If the proposal on the mayor’s raise passes, it would be the first pay increase for the mayor since the position became full time in 2007. At that time, the board set the mayor’s pay to be even with the city manager’s salary.
Approving the raise and having that higher pay be the starting salary for the next mayor gave At-Large Director Joan Adcock pause. She asked Carpenter whether the mayor’s salary could be reset before the next election andwhether it could be lowered if a new city manager was hired at a lower salary.
Carpenter said lowering the mayor’s pay would have to be done through a vote of the board. He also said that because of how the state statute is written, the salary could not be lowered merely on the basis of who holds the office.
“My suggestion is to add a clause that requires a salary review in two years because of the mayor’s term, and then every four year’s after that,” Carpenter said.
Adcock said that given that the mayor’s pay and the city manager’s pay are linked, she wondered if the mayor should have recused himself from previous discussions about the city manager getting a raise.
Carpenter said the law gives the mayor a say in hiring or firing the city attorney and the city manager, and he did not believe that the mayor had to recuse himself from salary discussions involvingthose two executives.
Ward 6 Director Doris Wright said she planned to ask the board to lobby to change the state statute’s language to be more specific. She asked whether an Arkansas attorney general’s opinion on what constitutes a comparable salary would resolve the matter. Attorney general’s opinions are not binding.
“I don’t believe we’re out of compliance, and I don’t plan on voting for this,” she said.
Last week, the board members voted 8-1 with one director absent to give themselves a raise for the first time in almost two decades. The board increased each member’s pay from $12,000 up to $18,000 and added a $3,000 annual stipend for expenses, all at Stodola’s request.
Stodola argued that the board members had not been given any cost-of-living increase for inflation and were woefully out of sync with pay in other comparable capital cities.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 05/29/2013