Proposed Pay Raises For Vancouver Leaders Gets Pushback

Starting next year, the Vancouver City Council is set to get the kind of raises that have quickly become the source of controversy.

The raises have gone so far as to pit current mayor Tim Leavitt against two of his predecessors, who are leading an effort to collect signatures for a ballot measure. They want voters to decide whether the salary increases actually happen.

“I think it’s stupid,” said former Vancouver Mayor Royce Pollard, commenting on the raises. “It’s difficult for me to understand how anyone can justify this.”

In January, the mayor’s salary is set to increase from $27,600 to $60,000. That doesn’t include things like health care and retirement benefits. Pay for city councilors will increase from $21,600 to $32,500.

City Council members are not responsible for the raises. Last month, the city’s salary review commission, made up of city residents independent of the council, awarded the increases in a 3-2 vote.

The three salary review commissioners who favored the raises noted in their final report that the city is growing and the issues elected leaders are facing are more complex. They also wrote that it takes more time to do the jobs.

Thomas Hackett, an attorney in Vancouver who voted for the raises, said the commission wanted to create more social and economic diversity among the city’s elected leaders.

“As a salary review commission, we’re not trying to say who should be on City Council and who should be mayor, but making sure that people are able to run for those positions and not have the finances be a barrier to public service,” Hackett said.

But Hackett said the volunteer commission did take into account the salaries of county, state and national elected officials as well as the salaries of working professionals in Clark County, such as teachers, engineers and accountants; the kinds of places Hackett said the committee wanted to see more candidates from.

Leavitt supports the raises, even though he’s not running for re-election when his term runs out next year. The job is technically part time, but Leavitt said he spends between 25 and 45 hours per week on mayoral duties, on top of managing his job as an engineer.

“It’s a full-time obligation, and it could be even more if someone was fully dedicated to the job,” he said.

Leavitt said his schedule books out six weeks in advance. He often has to decline meeting requests or invitations to community events, simply because he lacks the time.

“I’m not readily available throughout the day for impromptu, informational meetings, and that’s frustrating, I know, to a lot of people,” Leavitt said. “But when they learn the compensation is $27,000 … there’s an understanding why I’m not there eight hours a day.”

With a population of about 170,000 people, Vancouver is Washington’s fourth-largest city. But among the state’s biggest cities, it currently ranks 12th for mayoral pay and sixth in pay for city councilors, according to the Washington Association of Cities.

Under the new salaries, Vancouver’s mayoral pay rank won’t change, but city councilors’ pay will be the third-highest in the state, behind Seattle and Tacoma.

In Seattle, the mayor is full time and serves as the city’s top executive. The City Council members are also full time. Tacoma’s mayor is full-time and city council members are part-time, with day-to-day operations run by a city manager.

Vancouver’s day-to-day functions are run by a full-time city manager, who reports to the City Council. The cities with the highest paid mayors are managed by the mayor and city council.

Portland Mayor Charlie Hales makes about $134,000, while the city’s commissioners make $113,000.

In Beaverton, Mayor Dennis Doyle earns $169,000. He also manages the city’s day-to-day business. Beaverton city councilors get paid $19,000 and are part-time.

Leavitt suggests those who oppose the raises have an outdated sense of the city’s needs and the needs of working families.

“Maybe in a day 20, 30 years ago when Vancouver was still a fairly sleepy little town — Mayberry-like if you will — would it be, I think, more appropriate to consider your mayor and council members as retirees who had little else to do,” Leavitt said.

Among his colleagues on the Vancouver City Council, Leavitt appears to be largely alone in his support for the pay increase.

Four of the six City Council members told OPB they don’t want the raises — and they signed the petition to put the issue before voters in November. The other two city council members declined to comment.

Pollard, the former mayor who was elected in the mid-'90s and served through 2009, said the raises should be reasonable for “what essentially is a part-time job of dedicated public service to one’s community, which is what it’s always been.”

Pollard acknowledges that the low pay and long hours may prevent strong candidates from considering a run for office.

“You can’t buy dedication, commitment and loyalty,” he said.

The backers of the ballot measure are trying to get 4,000 signatures. So far, they say they’ve collected more then 2,000 signatures. The group has until May 20 to turn their petition into the city clerk’s office.