Council gives Lewiston mayor a pay raise
Aug. 22—The salary of Lewiston's mayor will rise Jan. 1, but the pay of the city's other elected officials won't.
Lewiston's city council approved increasing the annual pay for Lewiston Mayor Dan Johnson from $80,000 to $84,000 Monday night at a meeting he didn't attend because he was traveling out of state.
A boost for council members and the council president in the same ordinance was removed by the council by amending the ordinance before it passed.
As proposed, monthly compensation for city councilors would have gone from $700 to $770 and the council president would have received $850 per month.
The vote came after the council had, in a separate vote, directed staff to prepare information about what impact a 2.5% reduction in property tax revenue would have on the $107 million budget for the fiscal-year 2024 budget that starts Oct. 1.
That information will be shared with city council members during the third and final vote on the budget next Monday.
"I can't say that I'm wanting to sit here and cut the budget and then turn around and vote for this to increase council's pay," said Councilor Kassee Forsmann.
The council's stance on the mayor's pay was different.
"I believe that the mayor deserves a raise," said Councilor Rick Tousley. "He works extremely hard."
The council combined the typical first, second and third readings of the ordinance, setting the mayor's compensation into one instead of voting on the measure at three different meetings.
The council's approach Monday allowed the city to comply with an Idaho statute that requires the ordinance setting the compensation of the mayor and councilors to be published 75 days before any general city election, said City Attorney Kayla Hermann.
The council seats filled by Tousley, Jim Kleeburg, and John Spickelmire, but not the mayor's position, will be on the Nov. 7 ballot.
The decisions about pay for elected officials came at a meeting where council members sought to make the budget that starts Oct. 1 reflect what their constituents have told them are their priorities — better roads and lower property taxes.
The 2.5% cut in property tax revenue the council plans to consider at its meeting next week would reduce property tax revenue from $23.5 million to $22.9 million for the coming fiscal year. It was proposed by Spickelmire.
It won approval after two other ideas failed to get a majority vote. One was eliminating a cost of living increase of 2.5% for a year for the minority of city employees not represented by unions proposed by Forsmann.
"A lot of people are feeling hurt and they're looking at us to find ways to give them (property tax) relief," Forsmann said. "I don't feel like we're doing that. I feel like we're just going with the status quo."
The other idea, suggested by Spickelmire, would have cut money for investments at Bryden Canyon Golf Course from $530,000 to $330,000. Before the vote, City Finance Director and Treasurer Aimee Gordon noted that money was coming from reserves, so reducing it wouldn't impact property taxes.
At its last meeting, the council earmarked $1.65 million for roads projects, moving it from a building reserve fund to a capital projects fund that now altogether contains in excess of $4 million for the coming fiscal year. The fund is for roads, parks and the library.
In other business, the council approved a first reading of rezoning about 18 acres of undeveloped land from the agricultural transitional (F-2) zone to the regional commercial (C-6) zone. The land is west of Gun Club Road on the north and south sides of Nez Perce Drive. It's near a variety of commercial development, including Home Depot, the Lewiston plant of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, hotels and restaurants.
Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.
