Pay cuts will fund Verner appointee

Reductions in salaries will help pay for a new chief of staff position created by Mayor Mary Verner.

Verner said she will accept only a $100,000 salary – not more than $150,000, as stipulated under the City Charter. New City Administrator Ted Danek will earn $120,000 – about $20,000 less than the salary of his predecessor, John Pilcher, who had the title chief operating officer.

Chief of staff Mark Earley will earn $100,000 a year. The rest of the money needed to pay his salary will be made up by being “frugal with our expenditures,” Verner said.

Danek and Earley held a press conference Wednesday – their first day on the job – to explain their new roles. Verner has renamed the top staff position and selected a city governing model similar to one used in Manchester, N.H.

“I feel that a city administrator more correctly shows to the public and the people we serve what it is I’m going to be doing,” Danek said. “I’m going to be administering the city’s day-to-day business.

“It’s my personal feeling that government, especially city government, is not in the business of making money.”

Earley said he will be working on many of the same issues as Danek, but will work more closely with staff while Danek works closer with folks outside City Hall, such as county officials and business groups.

The two new officials have had extensive military careers.

Danek, 41, is retiring as the commander of a survival training squadron at Fairchild Air Force Base.

Earley, 54, moved to Spokane in 2005 when he retired as an Army colonel after 30 years in the military.

Verner said even by declining a portion of her salary, she’ll still earn “substantially more” than when she was executive director of Upper Columbia United Tribes – the job she left to become mayor.

“I am doing just fine on what I am making right now,” she said last week, when she was earning her old salary.

Former Mayor Dennis Hession also earned less than he could have. According to the City Charter, only Pilcher was allowed to earn more. But when Fire Chief Bobby Williams’ salary increased earlier this year to $151,000, Hession decided to keep his salary at $139,000.

City Attorney Jim Craven has ruled that the mayor can decline pay.