Mobile City Council members voted 5-2 Tuesday to approve an ordinance raising the salaries of the city’s elected officials beginning in November 2021, even as the two dissenting members, John Williams and Bess Rich, voiced reservations about the size and timing of the increase.
Under the current pay structure, Mobile’s mayor earns $89,000 annually, while council members receive a $19,800 base salary plus $175 for each regular and special meeting attended, along with a flat $325 monthly expense account. The new ordinance, sponsored by Councilman Joel Daves, raises the mayor’s salary to $125,000 a year and increases council members’ base pay to $24,600, with the per-meeting stipend rising to $300. The measure also adds a $500 monthly stipend for whoever holds the council presidency.
Rich, explaining her opposition, said she had pushed instead to cap council pay at $500 above the starting salary of a Mobile Police Department patrol officer. “It’s in line, and it’s somewhat of an improvement,” she said during the council’s work session, adding that the benchmark dated back to her own first term on the council in 1997 and still felt appropriate to her today.
When Rich asked whether colleagues wanted to formalize her proposal as a motion, Councilman Fred Richardson pushed back, arguing the math would have left council pay far behind the cost of living. He noted that if Rich’s 1997 benchmark had been adopted then and left untouched, council members would be earning only about $25,000 a year today.
“The point I’m making is that the police officers are going to be getting raises and the council is going to be frozen in time,” Richardson said.
Rich responded that her intent was to keep council pay proportionate to what the job actually demands without pushing it beyond what she considers a part-time role. “If you are concerned about the salaries freezing, you can write it where when those salaries (police officers) increase, so will the council’s salaries,” she said.
Richardson disagreed with characterizing the council seat as part-time work. “People who say they work part-time can clock out and go home,” he said. “Once you are elected, you’re on the clock for four years. In 1997, people had no way to contact us, but now they have 15 different ways that they can contact us. Our work is not done; I’m up at all hours of the night, texting and answering e-mails.”
Both Rich and Williams said they had no objection to the mayor’s proposed salary increase, noting it would bring Mobile’s mayoral pay roughly in line with peer cities across the state. Williams said he understood Richardson’s argument for raising council pay as well but felt the timing worked against it.
“We have a record number of people in this city and in the country who are unemployed and facing devastating economic times,” Williams said. “It’s terrible timing and it sends the wrong message. While I support the mayor’s salary separately, I just can’t do it (vote on the council’s proposed salary increase) at this time.”
A separate proposal on Tuesday’s agenda, urging Mayor Sandy Stimpson to bring forward a capital budget amendment that would distribute capital funds equally across all seven council districts — with a particular focus on city parks — failed to advance, drawing support from only three members: Rich, Richardson and council vice president C.J. Small.
“The idea that some (districts) did not get park funding should be troubling,” Rich said. “Every district should have park funding.”
Richardson argued the city’s governing Zoghby Act requires that each council district be treated fairly in the distribution of funds and said he intended to bring forward an amendment establishing an annual, equal distribution formula. Council president Levon Manzie voiced skepticism about that approach, warning it could create new friction among districts that already have funded projects underway.
“If we go back and take something from other districts, they will be up in arms,” Manzie said.
The pay-raise ordinance follows years of debate on the council over how to balance competitive compensation for elected officials against public sensitivity to raises for politicians, an issue that has resurfaced periodically in Mobile city government over the past two decades.