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Date: 6/20/2023
NORTHAMPTON — During its June 15 meeting, the Northampton City Council unanimously approved raising the salaries for elected officials.
The new salaries include pay increases for the mayor position, City Council officials, School Committee members, as well as the Trustees of Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School. All changes will officially kick into gear on Jan. 1.
The mayoral salary will now be $130,000 instead of its current yearly salary of $92,500. Additionally, the salaries for ward city councilors will increase from $9,000 to $16,900, while the salary for at-large councilors will grow from $9,500 to $16,900 and the City Council president’s salary will increase from $10,000 to $21,000.
As for School Committee, the salary for all members, including ward, at-large and the Trustees of Smith, will be $9,300. The current salary for Trustees and School Committee ward members is $5,000 while at-large School Committee members currently make $5,500.
The Council also accepted an ordinance that allows elected officials to receive 2% cost-of-living increases in 2025 as well as subsequent years in which the board does not meet.
“This a moment in time where we can actually go and create a newer footing for the compensation for elected officials,” City Council President Jim Nash said the COLA and increases. “No one is getting rich here; we’re just trying to establish a new floor that will adjust over time.”
Background
For the first time since 2014, the city’s Elected Officials Compensation Advisory Board conducted a review of the salaries of elected officials.
The board presented their findings and recommendations to the full council during a May 18 meeting. John Bidwell, the chair of the compensation board, said during that meeting that the mayor’s current $92,500 salary ranked 98th amongst city salaries in Northampton. With the council approving the increase, the mayor’s salary will now rank 16th in the city.
According to Bidwell, the board recommended the increase because the mayor’s position requires rigorous work demands that preclude outside employment. In most cases, the job is 24/7 by nature and requires 60-80 hour work weeks that include official and ceremonial duties, as well as state and regional meetings and other expectations.
“What we’ve seen, not only with the current mayor, but with the previous mayor, is there’s been an increase in the amount of time that is required on behalf of the mayor,” Bidwell said.
The board also found that ward councilors and at-large councilors spent an average of 20 hours a week on their council work.
Ward 6 Councilor Marianne LaBarge said during the May 18 council meeting that she spends even more time than that doing council work in a given week.
“We’re a very busy council,” LaBarge said. “It’s not just the meetings; it’s the obligation we have for people in the entire city of Northampton and our wards. It’s a lot of work.”
Bidwell explained during the meeting that the COLA increase is necessary because it would ensure that salaries for elected officials increase incrementally each year instead of waiting to have this discussion every eight to 10 years.
Also during that meeting, Javier Luengo-Garrido, a member of the board, said that the new salaries presented to the full council are still a “pretty low ceiling.” As someone who works for the ACLU of Massachusetts, Luengo-Garrido said he is very aware of how often elected officials work, and how the amount of hours they work can vary, and most elected officials in surrounding communities are usually under-compensated.
He added that if a prospective elected official does not have someone supporting them financially or if they are retired without a good pension, then becoming an elected official for the current amount of money is most likely not an option.
“I would encourage you to advocate for the ceiling we’re giving you, because going lower would be a bad idea,” Luengo-Garrido said. “I know you’re going to hear from the community members that you are just raising your own salaries…but you’re not doing that. You are raising a salary to a position to improve it systemically.”
Aside from Luengo-Garrido and Bidwell, other members of the board include Sam Hopper, Tara Brewster, Deborah Henson, Felicia Corbell and Peter Whalen.
The City Council created the advisory board in December to task them with reviewing the “adequacy and equity of compensation, benefits, and expense allowances of municipal elected officials and reporting its findings and recommendations to the mayor and City Council.” The board met from January to May and solicited input from elected officials about salary through interviews, Q & As and a survey.
Throughout those months, the board deliberated on several different items including the adequacy of current salaries and stipends, how to better attract qualified candidates, how to attract candidates with diverse talents and backgrounds, how to encourage a diverse candidate pool that fairly represents the diversity of the city’s population, and how to improve the compensation review process.
The June 15 council meeting
According to Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, because the salaries will kick in during the middle of a fiscal year, she plans on presenting an order in the winter that uses money from the undesignated fund balance to support the raises for the second half of the fiscal year 2024 season.
The city will then find a way to build the raises into the FY25 budget. According to Sciarra the accumulative cost of the salaries for the second half of FY24 will be around $80,000.
While the council approved the salary increases of the City Council, School Committee, COLA increase and Trustees with generally zero debate, there was some lengthy discussion around the mayoral increase.
Ward 5 City Councilor Alex Jarrett suggested that the mayor’s salary increase to $120,000 instead of $130,000 but the majority of councilors agreed that making this change would be miniscule and not significant enough to impact any broader conversation around city wages.
“I think [the raise] is well-deserved no matter who the mayor becomes,” said Ward 6 City Councilor Marianne LaBarge. “They are running this city and making sure that everyone is safe in this city.”
Part of the hope with these recommended increases is to increase diversity on the board and encourage fair elected representation of underserved communities that traditionally have not been well-represented and have historically been denied equity.
“This is a higher recommendation than surrounding communities,” Council member Karen Foster said on May 18. “And yet, if we are going to increase the diversity and make it more sustainable for people to serve in these positions, then it’s actually incumbent on us to be leaders in that role.”
Ward 4 City Councilor Garrick Perry said there is indeed a larger conversation to be had about wage equity but said these raises are important for the future of the city.
“I think there are no better people to advocate for wage increases than the folks who are doing it,” Perry said. “[The raises] are not just for ourselves, but for future generations.”