Springdale panel backs pay increases

City Council to vote today on planner, alderman raises

SPRINGDALE — The City Council proposes to raise the pay of Planning Commission members while also accepting a smaller pay raise for themselves than the mayor’s budget offered them.

The council agreed to a $50-a-month increase for themselves and commission members at a committee meeting Monday. A formal vote is planned for the council meeting today.

Mayor Doug Sprouse proposed an $800-a-year increase for council members, from $10,200 to $11,000. Council members agreed to the $600-a-year increase after a half-hour debate. If approved, the council’s measure will also increase planning members’ compensation from $3,600 a year to $4,200.

Those increases work out to a 5.9 percent increase for the council and a 16.7 percent increase for the Planning Commission.

Sprouse hadn’t proposed an increase for Planning Commission member but supported the idea as soon as it came up Monday night. City council members are elected and his budget proposal included elected officials, not appointees such as Planning Commission members.

If approved, the measure would be the first raise council members have approved since 2007. Members of the council expressed reluctance Monday night, saying it looked bad to approve a raise for themselves. Sprouse argued their compensation was substantially below other cities of the same size. Delaying an increase would only make it more difficult to catch up later, he argued.

Fayetteville pays its council members $15,336 a year, according to city figures.

Rogers pays $11,400 but Bentonville pays $9,545.

Council member Brian Powell recommended the increase for Planning Commission members, which drew no opposition throughout Monday’s 30-minute debate on an increase. Several members praised the work the commission has put in recently.

The council pay raise debate, however, ranged far and wide. Various measures going from acceptance of the mayor’s full proposal to no increase at all failed before the final figure was agreed upon. At one point, council member Mike Lawson recommended voting for a raise later, prompting Sprouse to reply, chuckling, “You can, but you won’t.” That drew a laugh from the committee.

Council member Kathy Jaycox, among others, argued the council raising its own pay looked self-serving. Sprouse said he knew he was placing council members in a difficult position, but the members need to think of future council members whose pay would never catch up to other cities if the pay fell farther behind.