Pay Raise for Next Mayor Back on Table

The Wauwatosa Common Council has considered and reconsidered raising the salary of the mayor over nearly two years, and it has .

Now, at what amounts to the eleventh hour, it seems inclined to do it after all.

After the question was raised again during city budget hearings, the Employee Relations Committee on Tuesday night voted 5-0 to recommend a 33 percent raise, from the current $22,500 a year to $30,000, to take effect when the next mayor is seated after the April election.

The matter can be introduced as a resolution to the full council next Tuesday. If a raise in the mayor's pay is in the offing — or even if it isn't — the uncertainty of the salary question could gnaw at almost anyone thinking of running for mayor, including incumbent Jill Didier.

Anyone taking salary into consideration in running for the office would have less than a month at the height of the holidays to file paperwork and collect signatures before the Jan. 3 deadline for making the ballot.

Two Previous Attempts Failed

An effort to raise the mayoral salary was brought up in January 2010 when Ald. Brian Ewerdt proposed a raise to $45,000. The mayor's pay had been stuck at $22,500 since 1984.

But the council then saw no reason to consider any raise in the middle of a sitting mayor's term, since no increase in an elected official's pay can take place while in term of office. The matter was tabled for reconsideration this spring.

In June, a proposed raise to $30,000 was defeated 7-6 by the council, with most of those voting nay saying they personally believed the position should be enhanced but felt that the economy ruled against it.

Then it came up again in the Budget Committee on Sept. 28, when Ald. Peter Donegan again moved a raise to $30,000. Ald. Cheryl Berdan upped the ante to the original $45,000 proposed by Ewerdt, but both proposals were knocked down.

In the end, the Budget Committee compromised by adding an unspecified $10,000 to the budget of the mayor's office — a "placeholder," as Berdan called it Tuesday, against the possibility of the council taking separate action after the budget was approved.

"I can't believe we'll take this up again before April," Donegan said Tuesday night as he again proposed the $30,000 figure. Donegan reiterated the history of the salary question back to when the $22,500 figure was set in 1984, pointing out that if cost-of-living increases had been in effect for the position, it would now draw somewhere between $51,000 and $53,000 a year.

Donegan also cited testimony he had collected from the past four mayors, including Didier, that they had considered the position a full-time job — while at the same time acknowledging that the city charter did not specify that it was.

However, he said, "we've learned that the mayor may not engage in any other employment that might impair his or her ability to perform the function of mayor. So, the consumptive power of this position has been more than halved since we set this salary."

Ald. Michael Walsh, who had consistently voted against any pay raise, said, "I've kind of had a change of heart. I was concerned that a higher salary would attract a career politician, and I thought that Wauwatosa had stayed above that with solid citizen government.

"But everyone I talk to is surprised by $22,500. I don't know if they'd be less surprised by $30,000, but they certainly are surprised by $22,500."

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Editor's note: This story has been corrected from its original version to accurately reflect that a change in the mayor's salary would be considered as a resolution, not as an ordinance change. City Administrator Jim Archambo had said he believed it would require an ordinance change, requiring a suspension of the rules if it was to be considered before Dec. 20.