The Blue Ribbon Commission has submitted a 105 page report to the City Council with its recommendations regarding salaries and compensation for our elected officials.
Here are the recommendations:
- Raise the Mayor’s salary to $140,000/year and continue all eligible benefits
- Raise the City Councilor’s salaries to $14,000/year and continue all eligible benefits but if a Councilor does not participate in the City’s Health Plan, then add an additional $5,000/year in compensation (“equity pay”)
- Raise the School Committee Member’s salaries to $7,500/year and continue all eligible benefits but if an SC Member does not participate in the City’s HEalth Plan, then add an additional $2,500/year
Thoughts?
5000 a year for a health plan? That’s pretty cheap!
Just what I expected of the BRC. The citizens of Newton should flat out reject any efforts to increase salaries until the size of the City Council is reduced. This increase also adds to the City’s pension liabilities. What should we cut to fund salary increases?
Peter: Did you read any of the report?
All of the items you are disappointed about are addressed in the first several pages.
@Greg – I can go along with an increase in the Mayor’s salary but not for Councilors unless there is a size reduction.
I know Councilors work hard but it’s time to get serious about reducing the size of the body before we increase compensation.
I support a smaller council too (but not 8/8). However board size was not within the BRC’s charge. It was off the table.
Greg, I understand that Council size was not considered by the BRC. That said, we should not at this time be looking to increase the compensation and benefits for part-time Councilors until the Council is reduced. There will be NO incentive for Councilors to ever agree to an acceptable reduction of the body.
Absolutely no surprise.
I called this one right at the beginning.
$5000 a year for health care is dirt cheap. Congratulations to all. There are indeed “2 Americas”. One for politicians, and one for everyone else.
The commission had no business having a former alderman – John Stewart – on it. That’s called a conflict of interest friends. Talk about stacking the deck…
@ Greg – who voted for the raises &
who voted against them?
A few factual responses:
1. The $5,000 equity payment (or $2,500 for school committee) is designed to provide an incentive for councilors to not go on the city health plan, not the cost to participate (and/or to provide some pay equity), which is likely higher for both participants and taxpayers.
2. The BRC voted on the recommendations on Tuesday. It was posted by the City Clerk on Friday, which is when I believe all documents for the council are posted. Memorial Day had nothing to do with the BRC decision on when to vote. That was driven by a deadline from Council President Laredo to complete the work prior to the next City Council meeting so it could be assigned to Programs & Services.
3. The reason it needed to go to P&S now is because the full council needs to vote on the recommendations before the November election and P&S needs to schedule time for deliberations, hearings, etc.
4. The BRC role call votes and final votes can be found in the report and meeting minutes. The final vote was 9-3. The three members who voted no, each wrote a memo explaining their votes which are included in the appendix starting after page 98.
Let me guess Amy. This news was released mid to late Friday afternoon yes?
Certainly not today on Memorial Day. Even a Blue Ribbon pay commission wouldn’t be that brave. So on the Friday of a three day holiday weekend – in news parlance it’s called a news dump when bad or unfavorable news is released on a Friday or holiday because no one is paying attention – these PR geniuses at the commission decided to sucker punch Newton residents and duck the bad press at the same time by releasing it when they thought no one would notice. Thats very sleazy…
When can we expect the City Council to vote on this? Does this have to go through P&S or Finance first?
I agreed with the reasoning of the last dissent in the report by Carolyn Gabbay. I wish more BRC members had followed her reasoning.
I am hopeful that Mayor Fuller will use her veto pen and send back with a message that the Council needs to come up with a reduction plan before considering salary increases.
@Greg-
It’s really hard to believe that clerk of courts David Olson, who has been in that position for almost 20 years, and Mark Laredo who has been active in Newton politics for at least as long could have such poor political judgement. Talk about a Tin Ear! You’ve got representatives from the league of women voters, business, political and community leaders on that pay raise commission and not one of them gave a second thought to releasing this report to the public on the Friday of a 3 day Memorial Day weekend?
Whether the raise was deserved or not is not the issue. Having the clerk of courts and the pay commission handle the release of this report the way it did is nothing more than a giant middle finger to the residents of this city. This is a good example of why people are so disgusted and disengaged from local politics and civic engagement. The arrogance, stupidity, or both of this commission is simply breathtaking.
@Paul: Nah. You might be onto something back when Newton had full time reporters covering our city. The fact is that there hasn’t been a reporter in attendance at a BRC meeting since the first one.
So really, what makes you think the spotlight would have been any brighter no matter when the report came out?
In fact, public participation at all of the 11 BRC meetings — other than the handful of city councilors who stopped in to comment — was all but non existent. I can recall only one non-elected person (a former alderman) who spoke at any of our meetings. I did miss one meeting, so perhaps there were one or two others.
What you should be upset about — or at least what I was upset about — was that the commission voted against releasing the a draft report before the final vote. But that had nothing to do with the timing. That happened back on April 24 and, again, no reporter ever took note.
BTW, have you read it?
@Greg-
Yes
I’m beginning to make my way through the report
Just to be clear, I served on the BRC on my own, not as a representative of the League of Women Voters. And for the record, I was one of the ‘no’ votes (with Greg), partially because we didn’t get feedback from the public on our proposal before the final vote. And if the timing was deliberate, please don’t blame the BRC–we were told when the final report was due in order for the City Council to start the discussion of the recommendations at their first meeting in June.
What Sue said.
But it’s ironic that “representatives from the league of women voters, business” are accused of something nefarious when we represented two of the no votes.
What Paul said. See you Tuesday night!
Mmmm.. Blue Ribbon…
I know right! I’d much prefer we’d be debating Kansas City burnt ends vs. pulled pork instead of raise vs. no raise.