Pay raise too divisive, mayor tells LR board

A proposal to give the Little Rock mayor a raise was pulled from the Little Rock Board of Directors agenda before its meeting Tuesday night.

Ward 4 City Director Brad Cazort confirmed Tuesday afternoon that he had requested that the proposal be removed after Mayor Mark Stodola sent an email saying the proposal had been too divisive and distracted from other issues over the past two months. The proposal would have increased the mayor’s $160,000 salary to be even with that of City Manager Bruce Moore at $179,208

“While I appreciate your efforts to ensure compliance with both state statutes and the City ordinance which was popularly approved by 62.5% of the voters, after a month and a half of discussion, it has now become counterproductive,” Stodola wrote. “There are other more important and critical issues for us to deliberate as we move this City forward.”

The issue of whether to give the mayor a pay increase was raised because of a state statute that requires a fulltime mayor in the mayor-city manager form of government to be paid a salary comparable to that of other municipal employees with similar responsibilities. The board and several city staff members had problems defining what “comparable” pay would be.

Little Rock is the only city in the state with a full-time mayor and a full-time manager after voter approval in August 2007 for that form of government. The mayor’s salary was set at $160,000 in 2007 and no raises have been approved since.

The raise ordinance has been postponed several times since it was proposed in early June and has stirred debate among city directors. Some have said a smaller raise would be appropriate, while some didn’t want any raise at all, and others questioned the mayor-city manager form of government.

An amendment to decrease the raise to $6,000 failed last week, and several city directors sought clarification on the roles of the mayor and city manager. For some, that clarification is still needed.

Ward 2 Director Ken Richardson said before the meeting Tuesday that he’d still like to have a conversation about the form of government.

“My position on re-examining this form of government is neither an indictment of the current form of government nor indictment or support for the previous form of government,” he said. “What is of concern to me, is whether we are accomplishing the things we set out to accomplish when we asked for that vote. Six years is plenty of time for us to fully evaluate our form of government.”

Cazort, who proposed and withdrew the raise ordinance, said he also has some lingering questions.

“In my mind, we’re still out of compliance,” he said.

The city could lobby to change the law requiring comparable pay, but the next opportunity won’t be until 2015.