A Bloomington city councilman has labeled some of his colleagues as “tone deaf” for proposing to increase council members’ salaries by $24,000, or 115%.
“It is a very selfish and self-centered proposal,” councilor Isak Nti Asare said on Monday.
Councilman Hopi Stosberg, a member of the committee that came up with the proposal, said the process by which the committee arrived at the salary makes sense. She said the council’s current salary is so low that it discourages too many community members from even considering running for council for economic reasons.
At the same time, she said, the “really big increase” made her “worried.”
“It’s still a conversation,” Stosberg said Monday. “I am not announcing a final vote at this time.”
Council members will discuss the issue at a committee meeting on Wednesday, immediately following their regular council meeting. They would vote after discussing the issue again at a subsequent council meeting.
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Under the proposal, council members would see their salaries increase to $45,423, up from the current $21,153. The same legislative proposal would also increase Mayor Kerry Thomson’s salary to $151,410, an increase of $13,379 or 9.7%; and Clerk Nicole Bolden’s salary to $129,780, up from $42,780, or 49%.
Thomson already has a higher salary than Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett, who makes $95,000 — although the Indy mayor’s salary will rise to $150,000 by 2028. Bloomington’s council members are said to be the highest paid city council members in the state, earning about $10,000 more than the next highest paid council members.
Bloomington leaders implemented some recommendations from a salary study this year. The city recently increased the salaries of firefighters by $20,000 and police officers by $14,000, mainly because the departments faced high turnover and competition from other Indiana cities.
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To set council member salaries, a committee of council members Sydney Zulich, Matt Flaherty, Kate Rosenbarger and Stosberg first established guiding principles:
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Accessibility of the public service: The level of compensation makes elected office attainable for community members of all socio-economic statuses.
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Fair pay: Elected officials are compensated fairly based on their respective levels of responsibility and commensurate with other elected officials and department leaders in Bloomington.
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Quality community service: Compensation allows elected officials to meaningfully engage with and serve the Bloomington community.
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Informed decisions: The Council makes informed decisions about elected officials in accordance with these guiding principles and based on relevant objective data.
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Transparent and documented process: A transparent, repeatable process leads to decisions about the compensation of elected officials, and the results are clearly communicated.
Hopi Stosberg speaks during the Bloomington City Council meeting at City Hall on Wednesday, January 10, 2024.
Commission members and employees of salary study consultant Crowe then brainstormed and determined to set salaries for the mayor and clerk at a level comparable to compensation for other city leaders.
Stosberg said the commission also agreed to compensate the council, the legislative branch of local government, at the same level as the mayor, the executive branch, and then adjust the hours worked. Based on a survey among council members, the committee determined that council members must spend twelve hours per week on the position. Because that is 30% of a 40-hour working week, according to the committee, council members should receive 30% of the mayor’s salary.
Council member “shocked” by Bloomington salary increase proposal
Asare first opposed the plan on Facebook, saying he was “shocked” by the proposal and that it was “tone deaf and poorly motivated.”
Asare said Monday that he understands that some of his colleagues want to make the position of councilor more attractive to a wider variety of local residents. However, he said the likely outcome of a significant increase will be that the same candidates remain in office longer.
He also said it is “absolutely absurd” to call for a living wage for part-time council members when a large portion of the people those members represent earn less.
According to the US Census Bureau, the median household income in Bloomington is approximately $46,543.
Asare also had difficulty equating councilors with the mayor. The council as a whole — and not as individuals — should function as a check on the mayor, he said. And unlike the mayor, council members do not work or are on call 24 hours a day. Every summer, council members take a break. During a major storm this summer, some council members weren’t even in town, Asare said, and those who were did nothing to run the government.
It might make sense to first divide the mayor’s salary by the number of council members and then pay each council member 30% of that, he said.
In addition, Asare said, the council this year discussed setting aside $6 million to conduct part of the salary study to let employees know they are valued and to ensure they stay in Bloomington rather than seek higher wages elsewhere. And now, he said, some city council members say they want some of that money for themselves.
“It really upsets me,” he said. “(It’s) an insult to the voters and residents of Bloomington.”
Stosberg said she felt “uncomfortable” with taking money intended for other city employees, but she said she also felt uncomfortable with devaluing the council relative to the mayor.
How the salary proposal compares to other cities
Although Bloomington’s council members would become the highest-paid council members in the state, some larger cities pay their part-time city council members more — though many also pay them less.
For example, in Aurora, Illinois, the state’s second-largest city with about twice the population of Bloomington, part-time city council members or aldermen earn about $22,000.
In Cincinnati, part-time council members make about $61,000 a year, but the city’s general fund is nearly $500 million, about ten times that of Bloomington.
In Louisville, Kentucky, council members earn about $50,000, slightly more than what is proposed for Bloomington city council members. However, the city’s highest-paid employee, the police chief, makes almost $300,000, or about twice as much as the police chief in Bloomington, and Louisville’s general fund is about 15 times bigger than Bloomington’s.
Stosberg said committee members discussed benchmarking local council salaries with those of other second-tier cities, but ultimately ruled against such comparisons because they quickly became complicated when local economic factors such as the cost of living were taken into account.
She also said the City Council has the legal responsibility to set salaries, but during the previous administration, under Mayor John Hamilton, salary proposals came from the mayor’s office, and the council signed them off.
“How many places (across the state) are this being considered?” she asked.
Stosberg also expressed some frustration that online feedback has largely focused on the large salary increases proposed for the City Council, while no one seems upset about the significant raises proposed for the mayor and city manager.
She also said the committee focused “on the roles themselves, not the people currently in the roles.”
You can read more about the proposal at tinyurl.com/2es7jc9t.
The council will meet next Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 401 N. Morton St. You can also watch the meeting via Zoom: tinyurl.com/2fjrsbaz
Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.
This article originally appeared in The Herald-Times: ‘Absurd’: Bloomington City Council Considers Raising Its Own Salaries by 115%
