08/20/2010 (1:42 am)
City leaders’ pay takes center stage
When word got out recently that a small town in California was paying its city manager nearly $800,000, the backlash was swift. Residents were furious and national news outlets jumped on the story, putting salaries for city officials under scrutiny across the country.
But, compensation experts say local city officials are not being overpaid.
In Dayton, for example, City Manager Tim Riordan is the highest-paid employee, earning about $145,000 annually. Among all city of Dayton's 1,300 full-time workers, only 20 earn more than $100,000 a year including Riordan; Stanley Early, the deputy city manager; Cheryl Garrett, finance director; Shelly Dickstein, assistant city manager-strategic development; and police chief Richard Biehl.
The national average salary for city managers salaries runs about $106,000. But, in cities with a population between 100,000 and 250,000 - Dayton has 153,000 - the average city manager makes more than $183,000, according to the International City/County Management Association. The average salary for full-time employees at the city of Dayton is about $55,000. Then average person in the Dayton area made $35,344 last year, according to federal statistics.
Click here for database of Dayton city employees that can be searched by name or salary range.
Click here for database of Springfield city employees that can be searched by name or salary range.
Michele Frisby, a spokesperson for the association, said the California case has forced city leaders across the U.S. to defend, or at least explain, their salaries.
"The ridiculous salary that was being paid to the Bell (Calif.) city manager is so unusual; most salaries are in-line with standards for the profession and are certainly not that competitive to private sector or they don't surpass private sector salaries."
When asked about Riordan's salary, Frisby said "he's certainly not getting overpaid."
Riordan - who volunteered to take a 3 percent pay cut shortly before the California issue surfaced during the first week of August - said that situation was a rare example of abuse; that pay for top city officials around the country was not out of whack.
"That is an extreme anomaly," Riordan said. "How the heck did they get that passed?"
As for Dayton city employee salaries, Riordan said "good people cost money," and the city needs good people at a difficult time that includes shrinking tax revenue. Attracting and retaining good people, he said, means paying market-rate for employees, something that applies to any organization, including the city. To bolster his point that Dayton salaries are reasonable, Riordan pointed to local companies where he said executive salaries compared to the lowest-paid workers typically run at a 20-to-1 ratio or greater. At the city, he said that ratio is about 5-to-1.
"Look around at some of the private organizations in this community and tell me that anybody else could match us," he said.
Riordan was appointed to serve as interim city manager in October last year, filling the void left by Rashad Young who took the same job in Greensboro, N.C. Since then, Riordan - who worked for the city from 1972 to 1998, including as interim city manager in 1994 - has since been named the city manager. Young started in Greensboro with a salary of $179,500.
In the city of Springfield, which has about 62,000 residents, Jim Bodenmiller makes about $112,000 annually as city manager. Among the city's 300 employees, only three earn more than $100,000 a year including the city's law director, Jerome Strozdas, and deputy law director, Andrew Burkholder.
Bodenmiller said pay city leader positions in the region is not out of line. However, the trick for Springfield and other cities is maintaining the balance of paying well for talent while being a good steward of public funds.
"Like it or not, governments are like large businesses in many respects and there's a lot of responsibility in those positions," he said.
As union contracts expired in Springfield - both in this year and last year - workers have taken zero pay increases for one- or two-year periods and nonunion workers got no bump in pay this year or last year. Bodenmiller said the city also scaled back or modified benefits, whenever possible, to save money.
"We realize we're no different than any other business, we're struggling to make ends meet," he said.
Dayton city salaries, in general, Riordan said, have been flat for several years as employees have taken a combination of cuts, zero increases and days without pay. And during the past decade, the city has cut about 600 jobs.
"Everybody has done something," he said. "You've got to be real sensitive to (the issue of city salaries) … because this community has been hit hard."
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