By NATE KING
Salina Post
At its recent meeting, the Salina City Commission agreed to double the compensation for city commissioners. This is the first pay increase for commissioners since 1999.
Under the new ordinance, approved 5-0 by commissioners on September 9, city commissioners will receive $600 monthly, while the mayor will be compensated with $1,000 monthly.
Initially set at $100 per month in April 1963 ($150 for the mayor), the compensation for city commissioners has changed over the decades, with the last raise in May 1999 resulting in a $300 monthly salary for each commissioner, including the mayor
According to Jacob Wood, deputy city manager, the ordinance outlines a higher salary for the mayor because the mayor is expected to invest more time in their duties than other commissioners.
According to Jacob, the mayor spends a little more time preparing to run the meeting. He also said it is pretty common in local government that the mayor would receive a slightly higher amount of compensation.
The City of Salina has operated under a Commission-City Manager government since 1921. The City Commission consists of five members elected at-large. The top two vote-getters serve four-year terms, while the third-place candidate serves a two-year term. Each year, the city commission selects one member to serve as mayor.
Salina Assisting City Manager Shawn Henessee provided commissioners with an assessment of past salaries.
"When the salaries were set at $300 that $300 in 1999 would have a purchasing power equal to $567.76 as of July of 2024," Henessee said.
Kansas law has historically dictated city official salaries through Kansas Statutes Annotated (K.S.A.) 12-1008, but with its repeal in 2015, the constraint is now removed. Salina, leveraging its "home rule" capacity extended by the Kansas Constitution, has used Charter Ordinances to independently regulate city salaries.
"What is a charter ordinance? A charter ordinance is something that when the Kansas statutes don't apply equally to all different cities, under the Home Rule authority, you have the ability to charter out of that. That very first charter ordinance was adopted in 1963 when the $100 City Commissioner pay rate was. Before that, the salaries were set by statute, and they vary depending upon the size of the city," Henessee said.
In 2015 the Kansas Legislature removed the statutory section which set the different classes of pay rate for different sizes of cities.
"This would be the last time you would have to adopt the charter ordinance in order to adjust the pay rate; since that statute was repealed in 2015, adjustments in the future would just require an ordinance," Henessee said.
There are several requirements for charter ordinance. It has to be passed by all five commissioners voting in the affirmative and there has to be a 16 day period after which there can be a petition filed to oppose the adoption of the charter ordinance.
"The charter ordinance wouldn't go into effect until 61 days after its approval," Henessee said. "The ordinance itself, with adjusted salary, would have an effective date starting of January 1, 2025. Additionally, the ordinance envisions two additional items in the ordinance, which are present starting on January 1, 2026."
To address future cost-of-living adjustments, an annual COLA linked to the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) will be adopted starting in 2026. This ensures salaries remain commensurate with inflation, enhancing the salaries' reflection of present-day living costs.
Commissioner Jerry Ivey Jr. said the increase could encourage more residents to run for public office.
"This could have the potential to bring in more candidates that are willing to run. This could helps supplement if they had to take vacation days or cut in pay in order to be here at commission meetings or other activities," said Commissioner Jerry Ivey Jr.
Commissioner Trent Davis and Mike Hopppock agreed that an amendment would be needed to ensure that the annual cost-of-living adjustments to the commissioner's pay would not exceed those of the city employees. Hoppock also said he wouldn't want the compensation to become the main reason why someone runs for city commission.
"As I have said from day one I ran for the fact that it is community service. If it stayed at $300 it wouldn't bother me. I know that we have other commissioners who would like to see this amount increased. I don't want it to be such a large amount that people are running for the wrong reasons."
The ordinance states the following:
"Every January 1, starting in 2026, an annual cost-of-living adjustment to the compensation for commissioners and the mayor shall occur in an amount equal to the cost-of-living adjustment for City of Salina employees that has been adopted for the current fiscal year."