The Highest Paid Mayors and Managers
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Nearly half of the town managers and other top executives in Rhode Island cities and towns are pulling in six-figure salaries—and the highest earners aren’t who you expect they would be.
The data shows a wide range in compensation for the chief executive officer for each city and town—from a low around $50,000 to nearly three times that amount in the 2010 fiscal year, according to data obtained by GoLocalProv. Topping the list is the town manager in South Kingstown, Stephen Alfred, who had a salary of $150,150. Next in line are the city or town managers in East Providence, Barrington, and Newport.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTRounding out the bottom of the list are communities like Warren, Cumberland, and West Greenwich. Overall, salaries averaged just under the six-figure threshold— $97,252.
(See the below chart for the complete breakdown of mayor and manager salaries.)
The high salaries are just too much for some of the smaller communities, many of which show up at the top of the list, said a spokeswoman for the state’s largest taxpayer group.
“It’s little wonder the state’s communities have disproportionately high property taxes and low return on services when there are small towns like South Kingstown and Jamestown paying six-figure salaries for town managers,” said Donna Perry, spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition.
The salaries do not seem to correspond to the population of a particular community. For example, East Providence, a community of 47,037 people, paid its then-City Manager Richard Brown $143,941 in 2010. Providence, which is four times that size, paid then-Mayor David Cicilline $125,000. His successor, Angel Taveras, took a pay cut and is earning even less, $112,500, according to 2011 salary data from the city.
Mayors earn less than managers
Wealth or poverty is not necessarily a deciding factor either.
Compare West Warwick and Cumberland. The first community has a median household income of $39,505, according to the latest U.S. Census. Its northern counterpart has a median household income of $72,242. However, when it comes to their chief executives, the disparity is reversed: West Warwick pays its town manager in the low six-figures while Cumberland Mayor Daniel McKee earns $67,700—nearly at the bottom of the scale in the state.
“It varies. Most of your mayors are set by charter,” said Dan Beardsley, executive director of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns. “The rest of them, quite frankly, it depends on their communities—how successful have they been in terms of their fiscal policies? That sort of thing.”
One trend emerges: Those earning the most tend to be town or city managers, while the mayors of the largest communities in the state are lower on the scale. Cranston maybe the third largest community in the state but its mayor, Allan Fung, is only the 24th highest paid municipal executive, earning $80,765. In Pawtucket, the fourth biggest community, Mayor Don Grebien earns slightly more—$84,252.
Some mayors take pay cuts
Grebien was surprised to learn where he was on the scale. “You would think that being the fourth largest community … we would have been in a different position,” he told GoLocalProv.
But he isn’t about to ask for a raise. In fact, Grebien is earning slightly less than his predecessor, who had a salary of $90,992. The difference in pay is largely attributable to longevity pay, something Grebien does not plan on taking even when he becomes eligible for it. Beyond longevity, Grebien also has foregone the annual $17,000 health insurance plan the city has offered to its mayor in the past.
Like Angel Taveras, Grebien said he is trying to lead by example in cutting his own compensation and benefits. “We’re trying to make sure people understand we’re very serious,” he said.
So are cities like Pawtucket getting a good deal with mayor form of government? Grebien thinks so. “I believe it’s much more effective for the people,” he said.
Of course, some mayors also employ highly paid directors of administration, which are analogous to the town managers in other communities that do not have elected mayors. But other mayors, like Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, do not have such positions.
Competition with the private sector
Fung said lower salaries come with the territory for public servants. “The position is true public service where I’m not in it for the salary,” Fung said. “I don’t mind sacrificing or taking a pay cut for the position. I really feel dedicated to the job and serving the public.”
But he said having a good municipal executive does not depend on whether he or she is elected or hired by a council. Fung sees one clear plus to the mayor form of government: “One of the things that elected officials bring to the table is a basic public service quality,” Fung said. “We’re not in it for a long career.”
The difference in pay for mayors versus managers has something to do with how they are chosen, said Gary Sasse, the former longtime head of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. Unelected managers and administrators are hired by city and town councils that have to consider the going market rate for a senior executive and offer salaries that are competitive, according to Sasse.
He said the six-figure salaries some of the managers earn have to be put in context. “The question you have to ask yourself is if you were hiring a manager of a $10 million or a $20 million company what would his compensation be?” Sasse said. “It’s not the salary. It’s the value delivered by the executive.” (In fact, South Kingstown had a municipal budget of $25.5 million in 2010.)
Defending manager salaries
One factor that put South Kingstown Town Manager Stephen Alfred at the top is sheer longevity. At more than 30 years in the position, he is among the longest serving municipal executives in Rhode Island. But there’s more to it than that. “I’m at the top of the list I guess because that’s what the council feels my compensation should be,” Alfred said, noting that it is set annually by the council.
He said his compensation also reflects on his performance in managing town finances. Any tax increases stemming from the municipal budget have less than 1.5 percent, Alfred said. And the town recently upped the exemption on the car tax from $500 to $3,000.
Long service is likewise a factor in Barrington, according to June Speakman, the president of the town council. There, Town Manager Peter A. DeAngelis, Jr., has been employed by the town for about 30 years, the last eight of those as its chief executive. “He knows the town extraordinarily well in all of its aspects,” Speakman said.
“He also serves a broader role than many other town managers or town administrators do,” she added.
Barrington does not have a human resources director and it does not use a labor attorney to negotiate public employee contracts on the town side of government, Speakman said. Instead, those negotiations are handled by the town manager. As a result, she said Barrington is almost getting a two-for-one deal. “That’s sort of a double duty for him,” she said. “The council considers him a pretty good deal.”
Case for consolidation?
Perry said the executive salaries provide just one more reason why communities should look at consolidation. “Consolidation of services and community governments is going to have to become a reality because either these overly costly tiny individual communities will come together to survive or stubbornly stay apart and eventually perish,” she said.
“I think it’s fair to say we have too many units of government in the state,” Sasse added.
But he said consolidation may not always be the answer. “The solution is not the regionalization and consolidation of everything,” said Sasse, who is also the former director of administration for former Gov. Don Carcieri. “There’s not one-size fits all.”
Depending on the circumstances and area of the state, he said consolidation, regionalization, or shared services may make the most sense. The greatest opportunities for such mergers, he said, are with administration, education, public safety, and public works.
In South Kingstown, Alfred said the town already shares many of its services with neighboring Narragansett. “Sometimes municipalities get hit with a broad brush—there’s inefficiencies and an inability to control costs, when there are things going on on a daily basis to control costs,” he said.
For example, the two communities share solid waste and wastewater treatment services as well as animal control. South Kingstown also provides emergency and public safety services for a section of Narragansett that is only accessible through South Kingstown, according to Alfred.
“Anything we can do with Narragansett, which is usually our partner, we do,” he said.
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