Editorial: Verner’s backtracking has created new problems

Former Spokane Mayor Mary Verner is the latest politician to inject politics into pay. Essentially, she gambled on winning re-election and lost. Now she wants “the house” to forget the bet.

Her gambit was risky, but she’s not alone in playing paycheck games. Typically, this plays out when elected officials publicly urge independent salary commissions to not raise their pay. When pay is increased, the game switches to politicians donating the raise to charity. This undermines the voters’ intent in 1986 to take politics out of salary decisions by having independent bodies make the decisions.

The late Sen. Bob McCaslin got it right when in 2003 he said, “The first raise I got I donated to juvenile diabetes, and if I’m waiting for applause, I’m still waiting. I think it’s a great political thing. I don’t want to criticize any senators who did it. But I don’t think this is going to affect the budget.”

Verner vowed to hold her pay at $100,000 a year, though she was eligible to make $170,000. Forgoing $280,000 over four years was impressive, but it didn’t change the city’s budget picture. It was purely symbolic. She didn’t make a big deal about it, but it became part of the “sacrifice” narrative as the city began cutting services and seeking compensation concessions from its employees.

It also became somewhat of a campaign issue when David Condon pointed to the number of City Hall workers with six-figure incomes. Would he curb his pay, as Verner and Dennis Hession had? As mayor, Condon has yet to definitively state what he will do.

So now the game isn’t whether politicians will take raises; it’s whether they will take their entire pay.

This is silly. We’d like to see Condon retire this issue and take the salary he is entitled to under the City Charter. If that’s a problem, then the city needs to revisit mayoral pay. If Condon feels compelled to play the game, then he should accept his entire salary and make a charitable donation. He can make as big a show as he likes to demonstrate this sacrifice, but at least this method extracts the city from the conundrum it faces with Verner.

She wants credit for the $170,000 for the last two years, because her monthly pension check will be based on her two highest-earning years. (Non-uniformed workers are vested after five years. Verner served eight years, including her four years on the City Council.) The difference adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on how long she lives.

She should’ve addressed this before losing her job. Perhaps waiting was a political calculation; perhaps not. But the consequences were obvious at the time she traded money for goodwill. Because no funds have been set aside to make up the difference, the City Council has been placed in the position of voting on this expenditure.

We are less concerned with the actual dollars than the inevitable cynicism that will arise. The public sees an official attempting to game the system and gain special consideration. It feeds the “there they go again” sentiment that erodes public trust.

We’d like for all politicians to pause and consider this episode, and then stop playing politics with their pay.