Little Rock City Director Brad Cazort believes that the city manager is underpaid, so he's asking that a citizens commission be appointed to review the salaries of top Little Rock officials.
Reader poll
Should the annual salary for the Little Rock city manager be increased from $186,443?
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- No
117 total votes.
The city Board of Directors will vote on Cazort's proposal Tuesday at its 6 p.m. meeting at City Hall.
He's requesting a 13-member commission be created that would come up with salary recommendations within 90 days. Each city director would appoint one member and the mayor would appoint three.
Cazort has asked that the committee review salaries of the city manager, the mayor, the city attorney and board members.
City Manager Bruce Moore makes $186,443. That's more than the governor of Arkansas, who makes $141,000.
But Moore makes less than the top officials at three quasi-municipal agencies -- Little Rock Wastewater, Central Arkansas Water and Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field.
Ron Mathieu, executive director of the airport, makes more than anyone else in area government. His salary was increased this year to $215,922 -- not counting benefits and the $40,000 bonus he got.
"I don't begrudge anybody or the salary that they're making, but I'm sorry, the head of the airport, the head of water, the head of wastewater -- those job responsibilities do not hold a candle to what we ask of our city manager. And his pay should be commensurate with his responsibilities," Cazort said by phone Wednesday.
In Little Rock, the full-time mayor makes $160,000. Board members make $18,000 and are considered part-time. Both positions also have monthly office stipends and have their business-related travel expenses reimbursed.
City Attorney Tom Carpenter makes $146,798. He is the 12th-highest-paid Little Rock official.
Little Rock is rare in its city-manager form of government in that the city manager runs the day-to-day operations of the city, but there is also a full-time mayor. It's the only city in the state that has both positions as full-time, and there's a state law that require's a full-time mayor's pay be "comparable" to that of the city manager.
There are four other Arkansas cities with the city-manager form of government, all of which have part-time mayors.
The salaries of the city managers in those four cities -- Hot Springs, Texarkana, Arkadelphia and Hope -- range from $80,400 to $159,500.
Board members and the part-time mayors in those four cities are unpaid positions. Most meet four times a month, like Little Rock's board.
The city attorneys in those cities are paid from $23,400 -- which represents a monthly retainer and is not a full-time salary -- to an annual salary of $123,386.
Little Rock's population of about 197,000 is far larger than the size of the other cities, which range from 10,000 to 35,000 people.
If the Little Rock Board of Directors approves Cazort's ordinance next week and appoints a salary-review commission, it will be up to the commissioners to decide how to compare Little Rock's salaries with other places.
"I don't want to limit anything they look at. I'd like them to decide what they think is comparable," Cazort said. "And it's not just comparing the cities, but I think comparing the job duties, too."
According to latest census data, there are six other Southern cities with similar population counts as Little Rock. They are: Mobile, Ala.; Augusta, Ga.; Irving, Texas; Shreveport; Amarillo, Texas; and Columbus, Ga.
These cities aren't usually the "peer" cities that come to mind when Little Rock is compared with elsewhere. Typically Little Rock is compared to cities much larger than itself, such as Nashville, Tenn., because of its prominence as the state capital.
Not all of the Southern cities with a similar population size have city-manager positions. Of those that do, the city managers make between $140,720 and $248,400.
The mayor positions in those cities ranged from part time with a pay of $5,200 to full time with a pay of $96,000.
City attorney salaries in the similar size Southern cities range from $112,680 to $215,000.
Salaries for members of a city board or council range between $5,200 and $33,300. That latter figure represents the board pay in Mobile, Ala., and includes per-meeting and per-month stipends in addition to a base pay of about $20,000.
In both cases where the city manager's pay is more than Moore's and above $200,000, the cities have a part-time mayor making less than $15,000.
At least one Little Rock city director has spoken out against appointing a citizens salary-review committee. City Director Joan Adcock said she doesn't think it's necessary.
The city board currently hires the city attorney and city manager, then sets their pay yearly after closed evaluations. The mayor is popularly elected by voters, and his salary is set in city ordinance. Board members' salaries also are set in city ordinance, and the board voted to increase members' salaries recently.
"Right now, we are supposed to be concentrating on infrastructure and the 10-year plan for that. I don't think we need to be adding other things to the budget until we fulfill that commitment to the people," Adcock said previously.
Cazort and Carpenter fashioned Cazort's ordinance after the state law that created a citizens review committee last year to evaluate state salaries.
That committee raised the salaries of prosecuting attorneys, circuit judges, other state prosecutors, lawmakers, the governor, the attorney general, the secretary of state, the treasurer, the state auditor, the land commissioner, Supreme Court justices, Court of Appeals judges and state district judges.
As in Little Rock -- where leaders of the various utilities make more than heads of city government -- the executives of various state departments make more than the political and government leaders.
Commissioner of Education Johnny Key, who leads the Department of Education, is the highest-paid state government employee, with a salary of $233,488. He's followed by directors of the Department of Health and the state Crime Laboratory.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, with his $141,000, salary, is the highest-paid political figure, yet he's 238th in the ranking of state employees.
The salary rankings can be found on the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's "right2know" section of its website, arkansasonline.com.
Metro on 02/25/2016