GREEN: City Council members whose terms begin in 2018 will ring in that New Year with substantial raises.
By a 4-3 vote this week, the City Council approved boosting council members’ annual salaries plus benefits to an amount equal to one-seventh of the mayor’s salary.
Mayor Gerard Neugebauer currently earns $99,805, one-seventh of which is $14,257.
But Neugebauer said Wednesday in an email that his salary will be $105,718 on Jan. 1, 2018.
As a result, some council members’ annual salaries will climb that year from the current $8,000 to $15,102, an 89 percent increase, the mayor noted.
Ward 4 Councilman John “Skip” Summerville, who proposed the legislation, said raising the salaries might add more diversity to the council and possibly attract more people to seek office, considering the city’s demographics.
He noted he doesn’t “have any skin in this game” because he will be term-limited at the end of 2017, a day before the new raises take effect.
The increases, which automatically will include annual 3 percent raises, will begin Jan. 1, 2018, for those elected or re-elected to ward seats in November 2017. At-large winners in November 2019 will get the increases beginning Jan. 1, 2020.
The council president’s salary will remain at $1,000 more than other council members.
The council hasn’t had a raise since 2004, Summerville said.
Ward 2 Councilman Bob Young, who voted against the raises with At-Large Councilmen Chris Humphrey and Justin Speight, said immediately after the meeting, “This is the most embarrassing thing council has done in my time [three years] here.
“I’m very upset over this, and I don’t think this issue is finished yet,” Young said.
Young and Speight can seek re-election, but Humphrey will be kept off the ballot due to term limits.
Voting with Summerville for the raise were Council President and Ward 3 Councilman Ken Knodel, Ward 1 Councilman James Ahlstrom and At-Large Councilman Stephen Dyer.
The council is prohibited from giving itself in-term raises but can pass a bill that takes effect after their current four-year terms expire.
Knodel, Ahlstrom and Dyer will be eligible for re-election.
A survey of several regional communities showed Barberton council members receive $12,000 annually to govern a city with a population of 26,500. Green’s population is almost 26,000.
Hudson, with 22,000 residents, pays council members $80 per meeting, with a maximum of $1,920 per year. And Wadsworth, with 21,567 residents, pays $7,377 annually.
Humphrey said he opposed the idea of having candidates running based on the increased income.
But Dyer said the raise, tied to the mayor’s salary, would establish and show co-equal branches of government — administration and council.
“As City Council members, we are charged with appropriating over $30 million of public funds,” said Dyer. “I don’t think there is a private-sector company in the world that would pay somebody to oversee $30 million in assets at $7.59 cents an hour ... I’m saying we need to get this in perspective.”
Residents Steve Braswell and Tony Ziehler said before the vote that they favored having a public hearing on the raises. Braswell also said the biggest reason to run for council was not the pay but rather the health care benefits provided to council members.
George W. Davis can be reached at: mediaman@sssnet.com.