Breaking The Bank: Which City And Towns Pay The Most?
Monday, August 22, 2011
A GoLocalProv review of municipal finances shows wide discrepancies in the salaries of top officials in cities and towns across the state, with some areas dishing out more than $100,000 to virtually all of their high-level employees and others paying nearly half that rate.
The analysis, comprised of data produced in a 2010 state Department of Revenue report, compares the salaries of employees of ten positions held in almost every city and town in Rhode Island. The jobs include chief executive, tax assessor, city clerk, finance director, fire chief, police chief, planning director, public works director, superintendent of schools and recreation director.
Overall, the higher salaries tend to come from larger cities like Newport, Providence and Warwick, but they are in no ways exclusive to the metro areas. In fact, some of the more urban cities proved to be significantly more efficient with their pay rates than many of their suburban counterparts.
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Four cities and towns – East Providence, Newport, Providence and Warwick- paid more than $100,000 to at least half of the ten positions analyzed, with the state’s second largest city topping out with all but two employees making less than that amount.
In fact, the only two positions Warwick was not paying salaries in excess of triple figures was tax assessor (the position is also tax collector) and city clerk. Still, the city paid its tax assessor ($96, 782) more than any other tax assessor in the state and at $90,308, its clerk made more than all but one clerk from around the state.
In June, Warwick agreed to raise property taxes by more than 60 cent per $1,000 of assessed value and slashed the car tax exemption from $6,000 down to $500. In his budget address, Mayor Scott Avedisian blamed the tax hikes on a combination of the recession, the 2010 floods and uncertainty around state aid.
“While economic recovery seems to be occurring in most states, Rhode Island's recover is occurring at a much slower rate,” he said. “We have seen this locally in our tax collections and abatements. Our collections are lagging behind expectations and our abatements have been higher than expected.”
Superintendents Cash In
Across the board, the review shows the highest paid city employees tend to be school superintendents. In fact, every full-time head of schools (Jamestown, Little Compton, New Shoreham and Glocester pay part-time) made more than $100,000 in 2010.
The salaries range from $113,299 in Foster all the way to $190,000 in Providence. The superintendents in the capital city, Pawtucket, Warwick, Newport, Barrington and Woonsocket all made more than $150,000.
In 2012, Providence, Pawtucket and Woonsocket will all have new superintendents.
Cranston/Pawtucket Most Efficient
While many of the larger municipalities offer the highest salaries in the state, two major cities actually proved to be among the most modest with their spending on top officials.
In Cranston, only the Fire Chief, Police Chief and Superintendent of schools made more than $100,000 while Mayor Allan Fung was among the lowest paid Chief Executives in Rhode Island. Many of the other positions (clerk, tax assessor, recreation director) all came in near the middle of the pack when compared with the rest of the state.
Still, Fung was forced to raise taxes in 2012 to make up for shortfalls in other areas of the city budget. He said his tax hike “in large part was necessary to offset one-time budget plugs that some of those very same Council members voted for last year.”
Pawtucket also showed efficiency with its top-level employees. The city only paid its Superintendent ($159,000) more than $100,000 under former Mayor James Doyle. New Mayor Don Grebien has said he is committed to continuing the city’s trend of fiscal responsibility.
Surprising Numbers
Cranston and Pawtucket’s savings in those high-end positions are even more surprising when compared with many of the smaller cities and towns across the state.
For example, East Providence paid at least $100,000 to its appointed Mayor, Finance Director, Fire Chief, Public Works Director and Superintendent of Schools. At $77,078, the town also had the third-highest paid Recreation Director in state.
Other city and towns mostly paid close to the median range for most salaries, with the exception of one or two positions. In Portsmouth, for example, salaries were mostly on the low-end of the state, by the town’s tax assessor was the second-highest paid assessor in the state and its clerk’s salary was in the top ten.
Providence Sets An Example
While it came as no surprise that the capital city tends to pay the highest wages, the results of a similar survey taken a year from now may net different results under new Mayor Angel Taveras.
Taveras, who entered office facing what he coined a “category five” fiscal storm, has taken steps to slash salaries of top officials, including his own. Mayor Taveras took a 10 percent pay cut early into term and with a new police chief and fire chief on the way and a new superintendent in place for the year, the city is making significant cuts to its payroll.
In his budget address, Taveras said, “After receiving the report from my Municipal Finance Review Panel describing the size and scope of the city’s deficit, I took immediate action. Because leadership starts at the top, I took a 10 percent pay cut. Along with several members of this City Council, I declined my public official pension. I ordered immediate layoffs of nonunion staff to save us approximately $2 million. I also froze non-essential spending and hiring.”
Taveras said his team met the challenges of its fiscal problems head on.
“Let it be written that while some looked to Providence’s fiscal crisis and saw nothing but darkness and foreboding, we seized this opportunity to show that hard work and shared sacrifice brought about Providence's finest hour,” the Mayor said.
