Is Peduto’s chief of staff really underpaid at $109,000?

Kevin Acklin said that the main reason for his resignation as Mayor Bill Peduto’s chief of staff was money.

Although $109,000 doesn’t sound like poverty wages, turns out even Allentown and Harrisburg pay his counterparts better.

During the Thursday announcement that he was stepping down in January, Mr. Acklin said he needed to go back to work as a lawyer as his children — ages 12, 11 and 6 — approach high school and college.

Mr. Acklin makes about $109,000 a year, nearly the same salary as the mayor’s, but it’s much less than what he was making in the private sector. It’s also less than what many chiefs of staff make.

A review of salary data shows that his salary is indeed relatively low for his job, compared with cities of similar size as well as other cities in Pennsylvania.

Jane Sussler, the chief of staff to Philadelphia’s mayor, makes $150,000 a year. Philadelphia is a much larger city than Pittsburgh, of course, but Harrisburg and Allentown pay their mayors’ chiefs of staff better than Pittsburgh. And Jennifer Liptak, chief of staff to Allegheny County Executive Rich

Fitzgerald, is paid slightly better than Mr. Acklin, making $115,000 this year.

Cities of similar size to Pittsburgh in other states also tended to pay more, according to data from a dozen cities and Allegheny County collected by local media or published by local governments. Riverside, Calif., and Toledo, Ohio, paid their versions of Mr. Acklin less — under $100,000 — but Cleveland paid its mayor’s chief of staff more than $120,000 in 2013, the latest year for which data was available. Salary data was not available for Cincinnatior Columbus.

Some of the jobs used for comparison are slightly different from Mr. Acklin’s. Allentown’s Francis Dougherty is the city’s “managing director,” for example, and Fort Wayne, Ind.’s Karl Bandemer is actually the city’s deputy mayor. Not all mayors have chiefs of staff, and some cities are run very differently, for example by a city manager hired by the city council.

Mr. Acklin is known for long days that start before dawn. Mr. Peduto said that he had indeed sacrificed income to work for the city.

Public service is “true to his heart, true to his family,” Mr. Peduto said before City Council, where he announced Mr. Acklin’s departure during a budget hearing Thursday. “There’s very few people willing to make those types of sacrifices, especially when you have three young children.”