Council rethinks automatic yearly pay boosts

Members okay a 5.5 percent hike for next year but want the "automatic'' removed for future years.

By SHEILA MULLANE ESTRADA
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 25, 2002

PINELLAS PARK -- Did they or didn't they?

When members of the Pinellas Park City Council voted Thursday to give themselves a pay raise, they voted for an automatic increase that will kick in year after year.

But at a workshop session Tuesday, they decided against automatic raises for themselves. They think. Or at least that's what Mayor Bill Mischler thinks.

Yet, Thursday's vote to "increase (salaries) annually at the same rate as all (nonunion) employees" means future council salary increases will be automatic.

"Yes, that's what we did," Mischler said Friday. "But we're going to change it."

Mischler said a majority of the council did agree Tuesday to remove the automatic provision from the 5.5 percent council pay increase for next year.

The mayor's salary is slated to rise from $15,000 to $15,825, while council member salaries would change from $13,000 to $13,715.

"Because it had already been advertised, there was no time to change it before the city budget has to be approved," he said.

"I've advised the city attorney to prepare a new ordinance and bring it back to us sometime in the next year."

But that will require another vote and would require a majority of the council members to remove the automatic provision.

"I would prefer not to make it automatic and I know at least two council members feel the same way," Mischler said. "We'll just have to have another vote."

At Tuesday's workshop, only council member Ed Taylor was firmly against making future council pay increases automatic. In fact, he disagrees with Mischler about what happened in the workshop. "I thought they decided to keep the automatic provision in," Taylor says.

Whatever they did decide Tuesday, the automatic provision appears headed for approval on Sept. 12 when the council pay raise comes up again for a vote after a public hearing.

Not to worry, says Mischler.

"As long as we do it (remove the automatic provision) sometime before the next budget (2003-04), we're fine," he said.

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