Council considers 2 percent raises for Mayor’s administration
HAMILTON >> Mayor Kelly Yaede and her department directors and other municipal officials will receive 2 percent salary increases this year if Hamilton Council decides to pass a certain ordinance proposal.
Yaede, whose current annual salary is $115,383, would see her yearly pay rise to $117,702 if council passes Ordinance No. 16-046 at a public hearing.
Hamilton Council was scheduled to meet Tuesday night and consider introducing the ordinance on first read. For the increases to be ordained, council must first introduce the ordinance on first read and then at a subsequent meeting adopt the ordinance on second read during a public hearing.
Councilman Dave Kenny on Tuesday afternoon told The Trentonian he favors the salary ordinance.
“I certainly support it. I think it is very reasonable,” Kenny said of the proposed 2 percent pay raises. “I think the mayor and her department directors have done an outstanding job, and they should get raises in accordance with what township employees have received.”
AFSCME Local 2475, which represents Hamilton’s blue collar Department of Public Works employees, and CWA Local 1040, which represents lower-level supervisors in the township’s municipal government, have each been recently awarded with new contracts providing those municipal employees with 2 percent salary increases staggered over the 2016 calendar year.
In addition to the mayor, the salary ordinance being considered by Hamilton Council calls for the following 2 percent pay raises:
Business Administrator John Ricci’s annual salary would rise from $144,232 to $147,131; Chief Financial Officer John Barrett’s annual salary would rise from $133,345 to $136,025; department directors’ annual salaries would rise from $117,474 to $119,835; Municipal Clerk Eileen Gore’s annual salary would rise from $108,787 to $110,974; the municipal magistrate’s annual salary would rise from $79,983 to $81,591; the presiding municipal magistrate’s annual salary would rise from $83,065 to $84,735; and Tax Assessor Donald Kosul’s annual salary would rise from $108,787 to $110,974 if Hamilton Council adopts the salary ordinance. Tax Collector Danielle Peacock, who currently has an annual salary range of $95,000 to $108,787, would have her annual pay range increased to $96,910 at the minimum and $110,974 at the maximum if the ordinance is adopted.
By law, the municipal clerk, chief financial officer and tax assessor have to receive the same percentage increase in pay as the unionized employees who have received 2 percent salary increases this year, according to Councilman Kenny.
The law does not require the mayor and her department directors to receive salary increases on par with the rank-and-file municipal workforce, but Kenny said he still supports extending the raises to Yaede and the township’s department heads.
“Otherwise we would have a situation where directors would make less than the people working under them,” Kenny said.
Earlier this year, Mercer County’s freeholders voted to give themselves 4 percent raises retroactive to January 2015, and they also voted to increase the salaries of Mercer County’s other elected officials. City of Trenton councilmembers next month will consider giving themselves and other city officials annual pay raises.
Kenny, who has been a member of Hamilton Council since January 2006, said Hamilton councilmembers have not considered an increase to their approximately $16,000 annual salaries in more than a decade.
“We never asked for a raise,” Kenny said Tuesday afternoon, “nor do we intend to ask for one as councilmembers.”