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A salary of $80,294 a year may be not enough compensation for Ogden's mayor, but a proposal from Junction City business leaders designed to raise the mayor's salary to attract high-caliber private sector candidates is not the right solution.
The group wants a blue-ribbon commission, comprised of public and private sector leaders, to review the mayor's salary and recommend a figure based on the demands and complexities that come with a "strong mayor" form of government.
However, a high level of city bureaucracy is one reason the mayor's salary has languished, in our opinion. According to www.utahsright.com, a watchdog online site, 34 Ogden city employees earn more than Mayor Matthew Godfrey.
If we increase the mayor's salary and do not address the salaries of other Ogden city officials, we're addressing the wrong end of the problem. We have to measure how much Ogden is paying for city administrators compared to other Utah cities. Those compensation numbers would have to change before the mayor's salary is changed significantly.
Having said that, we're also not convinced that $80,294 is a trifling sum. The business leaders who are pushing this agenda are living in a world where $80,000 is not a lot of money. Trust us -- it is. Also, we believe that they are underestimating the reasons that well-qualified people decide to run for mayor and other local offices.
The first priority of most candidates in Ogden, we believe, is to serve the community and make Ogden a better place to live. We don't want someone jumping to the job just because the money looks good enough for him or her.
Frankly, we think Mayor Godfrey has done a good job for Ogden during his tenure. He's helped Junction City be a safer city and improve its downtown area. He's also made it clear he's satisfied with his salary.
On the other hand, if the mayor's salary is reviewed and raised in the near future, we won't object. It hasn't been raised for about 10 years. A cost-of-living raise is certainly fair.
Dreamin' and Schemin' on the public dime
"How does Hizzonah fill his hours at work, I wonder, with all those
other execs pulling down higher pay actually being in charge of things?"
Ummmm.... Dreaming of a flatland gondola?
Must be smokin' some righteous weed....
The SE Editorial board must be smokin' some righteous weed these days. Not much else would explain the la-la land inconsistiences in today's editorial.
The board opens by raising sound questions about the level of compensation for various city management employees in Mayor Godfrey's administration. 34 of them, it seems, make more than the $80K the Mayor does. A reasonable person might begin to wonder what, with all that high powered and high paid talent on board, the Mayor does to run the city that his CAO doesn't do for him. [ How does Hizzonah fill his hours at work, I wonder, with all those other execs pulling down higher pay actually being in charge of things?]
The SE editorial board sensibly wonders if perhaps a blue ribbon panel might look into how compensation for those City administrators compares to compensation for directors etc. in other cities --- do the taxpayers in similar sized cities in Utah support as many execs drawing $80K plus as Ogden does, and does it pay them similar amounts? Good questions. Questions one might expect the SE to want answered before it draws conclusions about the job Hizzonah is doing.
Alas, not. Before knowing the answers to its own questions, the SE Board concludes that " Mayor Godfrey has done a good job for Ogden during his tenure.
He's helped Junction City be a safer city and improve its downtown
area."
Since the editorial is about matters financial, it strikes me as passing odd that, having raised significant questions about whether the Godfrey administration has been a careful steward of the public's money, it goes on to give the Mayor high marks overall, without so much as even asking about the level of city debt Ogden now carries, or the continuing hemmoraging of public money to service the construction bonds for the Junction [with its many many unleased storefronts, office spaces and his oft promised but as yet unavailable high end condos]. Money the Mayor assured the city Council the city would never have to pay. Odd omission. As is the omission of any consideration of the moribund River Project, the burning and collapsing Leshamville Slums --- all of which the SE has covered in some detail --- as well as the failure of the Administration to either issue code enforcement summonses to the property owners, or to clean the properties up and bill them. All reported in the SE, and fairly recently. [Does the editorial board read its own newspaper?]
So, in a nutshell the editorial states: (a) there are serious questions about how many execs Godfrey has hired and how much he is paying them which need to be asked (b) as for other financial and other problems on Godfrey's watch, well, we're going to ignore them and in fact not even ask about them as we conclude that (c) the Mayor's doing a bang up job!
That's some righteous weed the board's been smoking. Wonder what the brand is. Godfrey Ganja, perhaps?