City Council members eye pay increase

Salaries would be $11,000

SPRINGDALE — City Council members will consider giving themselves a raise tonight.

The pay hike isn’t part of the $27 million in this year’s budget for an 8 percent increase in salaries for city employees.

Mayor Doug Sprouse proposed the $800-a-year raise for council members late in the budget process. Their annual salary has been $10,200 since 2007.

A salary survey the council commissioned last year showed a pay disparity for city employees and elected officials, including City Council members, compared with other cities in Northwest Arkansas.

Council members rejected Sprouse’s initial budget proposal over questions of how to pay for the 8 percent employee raises. Two weeks later they approved a budget that included the pay raises for city employees but tabled the increase for City Council members until today’s meeting.

“The timing does look bad,” Sprouse said. “That’s just when I thought about a raise for them. So I added it to the ordinance.”

Council member Colby Fulfer said, “I did not feel that it was presented to us to get us to pass the budget.”

The council members all wanted to approve raises for city employees, but they had concerns about where they would find the money, Fulfer said.

“We just had to find a way to make it happen,” he said.

If approved, $6,400 is needed to pay for the raises. Sprouse called the amount “minuscule” and said it wouldn’t affect the budget. For example, he explained, employee vacancies in various positions mean the city doesn’t pay that budgeted salary amount, freeing the money to be spent elsewhere.

Sprouse noted he suggested a raise for council members last year, but they didn’t take it. Their last raise was in 2007 when it increased from $7,800 to $10,200, said Laura Favorite, the

city’s finance director.

“To do that job right takes a lot of work,” Sprouse said. “Not just time in meetings, but time for research and other things. It’s important to attract good candidates who take their time off because they love the city. They certainly deserve to be compensated for that.”

Kathy Jaycox, who has been on the council since 1998, said she has been uncomfortable voting herself a pay increase.

Fulfer and Jaycox said they would not vote for the raises this year.

“We don’t see people not running for office because there’s not enough compensation,” Jaycox said.

“It has to do with serving others, the people in the community,” Fulfer said.