Milwaukee council to consider pay raises for city elected officials, department heads
The annual salaries of Milwaukee elected officials and top leaders would rise, in some cases by tens of thousands of dollars, under a proposal backed by a Common Council committee.
The salaries of elected officials — the mayor, city attorney, common council members, city comptroller, city treasurer and municipal judges — would rise by between $11,000 and $30,000. At the low end, council members would make $84,205, while at the top, the mayor and city attorney would make $169,436.
The salaries of those who hold top unelected leadership positions in the city would also rise. The proposed top of the salary range for many of the positions hovers around $200,000, while those in the highest-paid positions would well exceed that figure.
The increases would take effect at the beginning of the 2024 term in office, after the April 2 election. The raises would cost $1.8 million for the remainder of 2024 and $2.8 million for a full year, barring any future raises.
Starting in 2025, elected officials' pay would also increase by 3% each year, unless general city employees receive a smaller increase, in which case the elected officials' pay raise would match general city employees', the legislation states.
The legislation comes on the heels of a similar proposal from the city's Department of Employee Relations that surfaced in the fall.
The legislation was sponsored by Alds. Khalif Rainey, Milele Coggs, Russell Stamper II, Larresa Taylor, Jonathan Brostoff, Andrea Pratt and Mark Chambers Jr.
It was recommended for adoption Wednesday by the council's Finance and Personnel Committee on a divided vote, with Chambers, Coggs, and Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic, the committee chair, voting in favor. Alds. Michael Murphy and Scott Spiker voted against it.
The committee vote advances the measure to the full council Wednesday.
Arguments in favor of the raises focused on the need to offer competitive salaries to better draw people to city employment and the 16 years since elected officials received a raise. A need was expressed to enhance the accountability to the council of those in top non-elected leadership positions at the city.
Detractors, though, raised concerns about the price tag of the proposed increases, given tight city budgets predicted in coming years, and the optics of approving pay increases for top officials just months after the council and Mayor Cavalier Johnson approved a 2% city sales tax to avert a financial crisis.
Raises would return Milwaukee to 'choice' employer, Department of Employee Relations director says
Department of Employee Relations Director Harper Donahue IV spoke to the length of time since city elected officials had received a raise and a shift from a time when the city was the "choice" employer.
As a point of reference, Donahue drew a comparison between regular across-the-board wage increases he said were received by Milwaukee Police Department members represented by the Milwaukee Police Association between 2009 and 2022 and the smaller, inconsistent wage increases for other city employees in that time.
And, he said, more city employees are leaving for reasons other than retirement while in 2010, the vast majority of employees who left the city were retiring. The shift is an indication, he said, that the city is struggling to retain its employees.
"The approval of these recommendations helps us move past being a stepping stone for other opportunities and instead a choice destination," he told the committee.
The proposal would raise salaries in dozens of unelected leadership positions, including the police and fire chiefs, department commissioners and directors, and many more.
The top-paid would be the retirement system executive director, where the range would remain $184,565 to $258,381, according to a report from the Department of Employee Relations.
Police and fire chiefs would move from an annual pay range of $115,161 to $161,221 to a range of between $174,117 to $243,756.
Top commissioners in the departments of public works, neighborhood services, city development and health, along with the director of administration, would see their pay range rise to between $164,261 and $229,958. Currently, the lowest pay for those positions is either $115,161 or $122,746 while the top pay is either $161,221 or $171,838.
Chambers echoed Donahue's assessment, saying the city needed to retain and fairly compensate employees. He noted the employers that are moving to downtown, saying city government could become a draw for those workers.
"We have to be competitive in our pay when we make those decisions," he said.
Mayoral spokesman Jeff Fleming said Johnson supports the pay plan, and that the city must offer market-rate pay to attract and retain good department heads.
"Because of the longstanding fiscal pressures the city has faced, our salaries throughout city government have lagged," he said. "Many rank-and-file employees have received market-based adjustments, and it’s now time to look at our executives as well."
Elected positions would see annual raises between $11,000 and $30,000
Elected officials would also see raises under the proposal.
Council members would receive the smallest, at $11,000, while the position of city treasurer would receive a $30,000 raise.
The mayor and city attorney pay would both rise by about $22,000.
The salaries are recommended to increase in the following ways:
Mayor: From $147,335.76 to $169,436.12
City attorney: From $147,335.50 to $169,435.83
Municipal judge: From $133,049.02 to $153,006.37
Comptroller: From $125,607.04 to $144,449.25
City treasurer: From $114,039.64 to $144,449.25
Common Council member: From $73,222.24 to $84,205.58
Common council president: From $82,749.16 to $94,310.25
Budget, timing concerns raised over proposed Milwaukee salary increases
For some, the increases raised concerns about the potential impact on city budgets in the coming years. There were also concerns about the proposal coming so soon after the sales tax increase was approved.
Murphy said in looking at compensation for management and elected officials, it is necessary to take into account what the city can afford to pay.
He noted the city, one of the poorest in the nation, just approved the 2% sales tax that went into effect Jan. 1 and helped avoid looming service cuts.
"This is a heavy burden that's being placed on our taxpayers," Murphy said. "Quite honestly, if we had not voted for those increases, we wouldn't be having this discussion. ... We would be having conversations about maybe laying off hundreds of people."
He said he was concerned that such spending would put officials in a "very difficult position next year" and force service cuts.
Murphy, who is not running for re-election, said he preferred an increase for elected officials closer to 8% or 9%.
Spiker also said his constituents were questioning why the city would pursue raises for elected officials and the city's best-compensated employees right after implementing a sales tax.
Donahue responded that the process of raising pay began before the summer's vote to approve the sales tax. While it's important for governments to be good fiscal stewards, he said, it is also necessary to appropriately compensate employees in order to retain them.
"The need for the sales tax, that's a conversation that folks had," he said. "The need to appropriately pay or compensate people for the work that they're performing, that's a different conversation."
Budget Director Nik Kovac said even if the city had not received additional revenue, raising salaries would still have been a better course of action than opting against wage increases and allowing unpredictable service reductions to result from employees' departures and an inability to hire.
Coggs also said the timing of the proposal was tied in part to the April election, after which the mayor nominates the people he wants to put in leadership positions and the council can accept or reject them. With higher pay, it may be possible to recruit new people to open positions, and the timing allows for a broader search, she said.
And, under state law, the council and mayor must change their salaries before a new term begins.
'Accountability reporting requirements' for city leaders gets backing
A separate piece of legislation recommended by the committee would also create "accountability reporting requirements" for certain unelected city positions.
Specifically, it requires that the mayor's appointees who are subject to council confirmation to annually contact each council member to get feedback about the appointee's job performance. Those employees must then report annually to the council on the results of the feedback he or she received.
It cites the council's "difficulty in obtaining key communication and sharing of information from some departments and those in key leadership positions."
Milwaukee Common Council President José G. Pérez said the raises required "accountability."
"I want the city to be competitive, I don't want to lose talent to other municipalities and even to the private sector, but with any increase I think it's only natural, it's pertinent for us to also increase accountability and fix the systems that are in place that prohibit the best service for our constituents," he said after the meeting.
Fleming said the council has a responsibility to be a check and balance on the administration.
"We certainly will continue discussions on how best those checks and balances are performed," he said.
Alison Dirr can be reached at adirr@jrn.com.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee committee backs raises for elected officials, top officials
