Intel from the Budget Workshops
The budget for the Mayor's Office was among the budget proposals submitted for consideration during the BEA workshops this afternoon. In the budget being proposed, Mayor Joseph Ferris is reducing his own annual salary for 2027 from $79,182 to $70,000.
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Good on Joe! And thank you.
ReplyDeleteHopefully the taxpayers see the $10k and not other public spending?
Not too long ago when the City of Hudson had more residents, it was a part-time role with an $11k to $45k honorarium per year.
In Hudson we almost doubled the honorarium, added a Mayoral Aide with a higher salary than what the part-time mayor used to get, and then added a Housing Justice Director who now makes more than both (~$100k, perhaps as high as $125k, including benefits).
This is not to say that Joe and Mayoral Aide Martin do not work hard and do not care tremendously about Hudson.
They certainly put in the time and could earn a much higher salary in the private sector or larger public sector.
It is simply to say that Hudson's number of residents and taxpayers are down, while the number of paid politicians are the same or higher, and at a higher rate of pay.
p.s. To pre-empt the inflation errata... a $10k honorarium for a part-time mayor in 2000, if it kept up with inflation, would be ~$20k today, not approaching $85k to $100k (including benefits).
And Kinderhook, Claverack and Ghent, with roughly the same population (or greater) than Hudson, pay their town leaders around $20k. (Not including CC / Supervisor pay, $17,000?, which Hudson has X5).
But in those towns those leaders do not have the managerial depth and institutional memory of Hudson's paid Department Heads and their deputies at HPD, Clerk's Office, Treasurer, and the volunteer HFD.
We should pay our city's executive handsomely whether they are an elected Mayor or as some have proposed a City Manager.
ReplyDeleteThe person in this role runs a roughly $20 million budget, negotiates union contracts, manages department heads, and competes for state grants. Yet we pay the mayor less than some of the people who report to them?
A low salary shrinks the candidate pool to people who are retired, can afford to take a pay cut out of a sense of public service or are simply not particularly talented.
If we want excellent leaders, we have to make the job one that attracts excellent candidates. Pay and benefits is how we do that under capitalism.
Cutting the Mayor's salary is good populist politics but atrocious public policy.
The City of Newburgh is currently advertising to hire a City Manager for $200k-$250k. https://icma.org/job-posts/149465 Let that pay gap sink in for a moment. Which job in public service would you take if you were talented enough to have a shot at either one?
Nathan Woodhull
Hudson, NY.
That theory has not borne fruit in Hudson. Amateurs attracted by a higher salary than they can earn in the private sector is what we’ve attracted so far.
DeleteNewburgh’s population is four times larger than Hudson’s and its budget more than quintuples ours. Even Albany—with a 100k population and $225m budget—“only” pays its mayor $160k.
DeleteReally appreciate your opinion, Nathan, and we're mostly on the same page.
ReplyDeletePay professionals well.
In a small, shrinking town, politicians should be fewer and paid less.
- Hudson fell from ~7,500 residents in 2000 to ~5,500 now. But politician pay went up way above inflation.
- We have 18 paid politicians, about 1 per 300 residents. Portsmouth, NH (~20,000 people) elects 9 councilors and pays its city manager $190,000, and its mayor almost nothing. It works well and no contracts are signed in secret for political ends. You mention Newburgh… they have 5 times our population and a much larger tax base of properties.
- The mayor doesn't do all the tasks you list alone: the Council President and Treasurer build and negotiate the budget with him (BEA).
Our Clerks, the Treasurer's staff, and the code enforcement officer arguably earn below market, and we can pay them better if we don’t pay 18 politicians.
The answer is fewer people, more professionals, better paid.
Joe spent ~$50k of his own money, on his own campaign, getting elected, most of a year's pay, and is now cutting his salary. So in a way he is already an unpaid mayor.
Like a CEO taking a cash pay cut for “solidarity”, when the real value is the stock options / equity, or in public roles, status and power, and lucrative future jobs or Albany roles.
Charter Reform fixes this.
Hate to be johnny-one-note, but the school district should give us a lesson in how to waste good taxpayer money with a mismanaged management model and shrinking population.
ReplyDelete