A report calling for the mayor's salary to be set at $110,000 is expected to land on the City Council agenda soon, even though Sarno and his 2 challengers want nothing to do with it.
Left to right, Springfield School Committee member Antonette Pepe, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and Springfield City Council President Jose Tosado, who are expected to face off in a mayoral preliminary in September, all agree that the salary for the city's mayor should not be raised at this time.SPRINGFIELD – Three mayoral candidates had the same reaction this week to a $15,000 raise for the city’s top executive: Thanks, but no thanks.
A report calling for the mayor’s salary to be set at $110,000 is expected to land on the City Council agenda soon, even though incumbent Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and his two challengers want nothing to do with it.
“I hope it dies in committee,” Council President and mayoral candidate Jose F. Tosado said Tuesday, referring to the pay-hike proposal drafted by a committee he appointed last year.
The gap between the mayor’s $95,000-a-year pay and the city’s approximately $35,000-a-year average household income is just too glaring to justify any increase, Tosado said.
For his part, Sarno has already called for pay freezes for all municipal employees, from police, fire and public works departments to the mayor’s office.
“It’s not an appropriate time to be entertaining that proposal,” the two-term incumbent said about the mayoral pay increase.
The third contender for mayor, School Committee member Antonette E. Pepe, went further, saying the issue should not even be considered when lower-paid workers are expected to take furloughs and pay freezes.
But the matter is likely to surface in coming weeks because the mayor’s compensation committee spent four months studying the issue, and its chairman, councilor John A. Lysak, doesn’t want the work wasted.
At Monday’s council meeting, Lysak unveiled the committee’s findings, including setting the mayor’s salary at $110,000, with 2.5 percent cost-of-living increases.
The figure is $15,000 more than the position pays now, and $14,000 less than it would be if mayors got the annual increases enjoyed by other municipal workers, according to Lysak. The mayor’s current salary has not changed in 13 years.
Establishing a higher salary and regular cost-of-living adjustments would not only remove politics from the compensation issue, it would also make the post more attractive to private sector managers who find the current $95,000 salary unattractive, Lysak said.
“I’m a politician, but I’d like to see a non-politician run for the seat sometime,” Lysak said. “It would be nice.”
The study committee included councilors and community volunteers, according to Lysak, who said their recommendations need council approval to take effect; the new salary would be effective January 2012, coinciding with the start of the new four-year mayoral term.
The issue surfaced last year when the Springfield Chamber of Commerce called for raising the mayor’s pay level, citing significantly larger sums earned by mayors and managers in New England cities, including Hartford ($139,128), Lowell ($144,000) and Providence ($125,000).
Westfield pays its mayor $90,000 a year, while mayors in Chicopee, Holyoke, West Springfield and Agawam get annual salaries of $85,000. The salary in Northampton is $80,000.