Pay boost for council faces fight

A group of Spokane Valley citizens wants to freeze a City Council pay hike before it takes effect.

About 50 people have organized to fight the salary increase, which was announced Aug. 2. If the group can gather 6,174 signatures by 5 p.m. Sept. 10, voters will decide whether to give the council a raise on Election Day in November.

“If (council members) really, genuinely care about this new city, they’re not going to be worried about what kind of a paycheck they’ll be getting,” said Sally Jackson, who organized the meeting.

The council created an independent salary commission in June to examine its pay schedule. After studying the salaries of elected officials in similar-sized cities, the commission recommended increasing council members’ pay to $900 from $400 a month. The mayor should receive $1,200, rather than $500, and the deputy mayor should earn $1,000 rather than $400, the commission said.

By law, the new salary scale will go into effect automatically next month unless the petition effort successfully puts the issue on the ballot.

Commission Chairman Dave Gregory said after looking at how much time Spokane Valley council members dedicate to the city and how little they’re paid it was “hard to argue with the facts.”

“There are cities with less population that are paying their people much more,” Gregory said.

On average, Washington cities with populations between 40,000 and 145,000 that operate under a council-manager form of government pay their mayors $1,223 a month, their deputy mayors $954 and their council members $925, the commission found.

Gregory said if the Spokane Valley salaries don’t increase, he’d worry that the only citizens running for council would be people with the time and money to make a big sacrifice.

“We don’t want to make these positions only for the rich to apply,” he said.

Jackson said the issue boils down to the motivation behind running for office.

“You run to be a public servant,” she said. “They all knew what the price was (as candidates).”

Rick Lloyd, who’s also fighting the pay hike, said elected officials are never fully paid for their efforts, though. Surely, the U.S. president sacrifices more than even a $400,000 salary justifies, he said.

But offering the council more money when the city is struggling with a weak revenue stream bothers Lloyd.

“If I was a CEO and I had put my company this far in debt with no real end in sight, and I told my stockholders a number of things about the expected performance, I would be fired,” he said.

Gregory said he thinks most people will agree with the pay hike once they look at the work council members do.

He talked with about 100 citizens this summer about the salaries and said many were against a raise at first blush. By the end of their conversations — after Gregory told them about the 20 to 65 hours the officials spend each week at civic meetings, ribbon cuttings and at their desks studying city documents — every single citizen agreed the council deserved more money, he said.

In regards to the salary increase coinciding with 2005 budget talks, Gregory said the timing’s always right when it comes to being fair.

“It’s just not fair to work somebody for three bucks an hour,” he said.

If Jackson and the others get their way, that will be put to voters to decide.