Mayor seeks $25K pay hike by 2023
Mayor Steve Noble is seeking a $5,000 raise in the 2019 proposed budget.
And in each of the following four years, as well, pushing the salary from the current $75,000 to $100,000.
In an email this week, Noble said he intends to budget a $5,000 increase in the mayor’s pay each year until 2023.
“As part of my recommended budget, I have proposed a $5,000 increase to the may- or’s salary,” Noble said in the email. “This is part of a proposed five-year plan to raise the salary $5,000 per year to a total of $100,000 by 2023,” said Noble, a Democrat whose term will expire at the end of December 2019.
“After reviewing salary schedules of full-time city administrators and strong mayor forms of government across the state, I feel that this is an appropriate adjustment and doing so over 5 years reduces the impact on the city budget,” Noble said.
On Wednesday, Noble publicly announced his proposed 2019 budget at City Hall. He made no mention of the proposed raise.
Noble disclosed his pay plan for his office after being asked by a reporter if any elected officials
would get raises under his proposed 2019 budget.
Noble said he did not propose any pay increases for Common Council members, “but would encourage council members to discuss the matter.”
In Ulster County, the county executive is paid a salary of $133,572; Kingston schools superintendent, $230,000; and town of Ulster supervisor, $44,000.
In Poughkeepsie, the mayoral salary is $77,375.
The matter of a mayoral raise has come up before, most recently during the administration of Mayor Shayne Gallo.
In 2014, then Alderwoman Elisa Ball, D-Ward 6, suggested the mayor’s salary be raised from $75,000 to $100,000 at the
start of 2016.
James Sottile, who was mayor at that time, supported that proposal. In 2005, it was Sottile who successfully pushed for a mayoral raise from $60,000 to $75,000.
“When you look at the responsibility that falls upon the mayor’s office, it is massive,” Sottile reflected in 2014. “You are required to keep the health, safety and welfare of 23,000 people in your mind all the time,” said Sottile, who was mayor from January 2002 through December 2011.
But Sottile said it is not easy to secure a raise.
“I got hammered (for suggesting the raise),” Sottile recalled in 2014. “There are people out there who think that the mayor should volunteer his or her time and not get paid a dime.
“There is always an outcry when an elected official tries to increase the salary of the office,”
he said.
Noble’s proposed city budget for the coming year totals nearly $44 million, maintains the current property tax levy and reduces tax rates.
The plan calls for increasing spending by $1,456,909, or 3.4 percent, over this year’s adopted budget of $42,519,568. It would use $904,858 from the city’s fund balance to offset expenses.
The property tax levy in Noble’s proposal would remain at $17,650,940 for the fourth year in a row.
The budget still must be reviewed and voted on by the Common Council.
Under Noble’s proposal, the property tax rate for homestead, or residential, properties would decrease 20 cents, to $9.74 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The non homestead, or commercial, rate would decrease $1.80 to $15.59 per $1,000.