Members of the Plymouth Common Council considered on 2nd and 3rd reading the ordinance setting the salaries of elected officials for the 2022 budget.
City Councilman Jeff Houin explained why the salary increases for the Mayor and Clerk/Treasurer were at a greater rate than those for council members and city employees.
Part of the reason for the mayor’s salary increase at 7.5% is because years before, before Mayor Senter was the mayor, the council had frozen wages except for the clerk/treasurer. Houin said that caused a bigger discrepancy between the mayor and clerk.
Houin also said city employees received a mid-year pay increase in 2021 but elected officials are not eligible to receive a mid-year raise so the council decided to give the clerk/treasurer a 4.5% increase next year to compensate for the lack of a raise this year along with the mayor’s 7.5% raise.
Council members will receive a 3% increase just like city employees next year.
Councilman Greg Compton said he wasn’t in favor of any raise for elected officials next year. He said with the current state of the economy, difficulty in hiring employees and COVID he’s glad that the city could give employees a raise so they will stay with the city. Compton said, “We are elected officials, elected to serve the public. When we have elections there are people lining up to run for office. I don’t think it’s a situation where we would lose or have less qualified individuals to fill positions.” While he said he wasn’t opposed to raises for elected officials he thought the timing wasn’t right and said he wouldn’t support the increases.
Council members voted on second and third readings 6 to 1 with Compton being the lone no vote.
The salary for the mayor in 2022 will be $67,592.88. The clerk/treasurer’s salary will be $68,220.72 and each council member will be paid $9,222.48 next year.
