Update: The Green Bay City Council on Sept. 16 referred the proposed ordinance back to the Personnel Committee for staff to specify language around the base salary used to calculate future mayoral salaries.
After being revised by the Green Bay City Council in June to give future mayors annual raises forever, the ordinance governing the mayor’s salary is up for another edit, this time after city staff’s concerns that the recent amendment goes against Wisconsin law.
Human Resources Director Brian Rollefson noted in a Sept. 9 memo to the Personnel Committee that Chapter 66 of Wisconsin statutes says, “Elected official salary schedules cannot include an automatic adjustment (including the upwards and downwards fluctuation in the cost of living).” Put even more straight-forwardly: elected officials cannot get automatic raises, even to account for changes in the cost of living due to inflation or deflation.
The ordinance, as most recently revised, is in direct conflict with that portion of state law, and the proposed fix is the second recommendation made in a week to keep city ordinances consistent with state statute.
The City Council on June 24 approved bumping up the mayoral salary to $128,547 at the start of the next mayoral term, in April 2027, then giving an automatic 3.5% annual raise “in perpetuity.” The mayoral salary is currently set at $102,298.55, excluding benefits.
Council members on the Personnel Committee had advocated for the 3.5% increase to match yearly raises given to other city employees, attract the best candidates, reflect the mayor’s workload, and bring the mayor’s salary in line with other municipalities. City Council president Brian Johnson added the words “in perpetuity,” taking the responsibility of changing the mayor’s salary away from the City Council and city staff. Committee members reasoned the automatic nature of the raises would keep the mayor’s salary from becoming “weaponized” as a political tool.
Under the new proposal from Rollefson’s department, the mayoral salary would still rise to $128,547 in April 2027. The new language, however, strikes any mention of raises “in perpetuity.” It proposes a new mechanism to increase the mayor’s salary at the start of each four-year term instead of automatic annual raises. After the end of the mayor’s term in 2031, the salary would change the same percentage as raises given to general city employees in the previous four years, effective at the start of each mayor’s term, according to Rollefson’s memo ― a workaround to the semantics of Wisconsin law.
The new recommendation is itself a second draft. Rollefson’s department initially wrote an ordinance revision for the Personnel Committee’s Aug. 12 meeting that outlined 3% annual raises over the next mayor’s four years in office. It did not have wording that would have raised the mayor’s salary beyond the term ending in 2031. City staff did not present that original version to the Personnel Committee, and instead requested that their initial proposal be tabled to allow “more time to look into the legal side behind it,” said council member Jennifer Grant.
Rollefson further explained the Law Department had informed him that increases made during the middle of a mayor’s term were prohibited.
Council members Kathy Hinkfuss and Johnson were confused as to why the City Council had previously been allowed to give the mayor a $20,000 raise over four years. Director of Operations Joe Faulds said that had been permissible because it was not a cost-of-living adjustment, but rather a fixed increase of $5,000 per year. The Law Department, Faulds added, did not want to see such a fixed rate increase into the near future.
Johnson was still concerned that the mayor’s salary would lag behind forecasted inflationary costs of living. He said he was fine with the revision as written, though, noting the ordinance did not prevent city staff or council members from requesting future discussion on the mayor’s salary by their own initiative.
The Personnel Committee’s three present members – Jennifer Grant, Hinkfuss and Johnson, with council member Bill Galvin was excused – unanimously endorsed the new revision, and sent off their recommendation for final approval by the City Council on Sept. 16.
Jesse Lin is a reporter covering the community of Green Bay and its surroundings, as well as politics in northeastern Wisconsin. Contact him at 920-834-4250 or jlin@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Perpetual salary raises for future Green Bay mayors revisited as current version violates state statute
Reporting by Jesse Lin, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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