12/19/12
Some readers have asked the Insider to research compensation for city administrators. The Insider always likes a good research project to work on during these gloomy days.
Thinking back, the Insider recalled a Council discussion in 2010 about setting compensation for non-union employees. A quick search of the website and the agenda packets and minutes for work sessions ended at the documents for the 8/23/10 work session. There, former Administrator Heck reported on his analysis of salary data from the League of Minnesota Cities. He'd looked at a large number of cities and reported the following:
Average low of the Administrator pay range was about $93,000
Average maximum of the Administrator range was about $123,000
Apparently, there was a very wide range due to variations in city sizes and a mix of city administrator and city manager classifications.
Of course, this is over two year old data and should be revisited. But it gives an idea of how administrators are being paid since many cities have given very low, or zero, increases over the past two years.
Happy Reading!
The Insider
Thank you, Insider.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. Can that be broken down into cities under 10,000 people?
Here is another project for you. Every resident of Shorewood pays a lot in taxes to the Minnetonka School District. I think it needs a watchdog of your caliber.
Here are questions to investigate. Why is the superintendent paid close to $300k a year? Why are over 20% of the students from outside the district, and why does Minnetonka advertise to recruit them? If you take away the out-district students, how much could be saved by teacher and staff cuts, and building closures?
Why would there need to be a breakdown by population? Does the city only recruit candidates for top positions from cities with populations below a certain number? Seems to me as a metro city, Shorewood's market for candidates covers the entire state and maybe even nationally. Thus to attract quality candidates, shouldn't the compensation be comparable to at least a metro average at the minimum and a state wide average at most?
ReplyDeleteBefore we get all wrapped up in what SHOREWOOD's city administrator could or should make, let's learn more about what the job description encompasses.
ReplyDeleteIf this city is truly 95% developed as staff tells us, and if in fact, we want to keep in the 1950s as so many residents cry about, what's left to do besides supervise staff (and some need it more than others)?
You should ask staff to stop working for a week and check it out.
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