 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Council talks of full-time duty, pay
By LEONORA LaPETER
© St. Petersburg Times, ST. PETERSBURG -- When City Council member Virginia Littrell gave up her job running the Florida Consumer Action Network last week, she joined a growing number of council members who take the city's business so seriously they have turned it into a full-time job. Only problem is, the job has traditionally been considered part-time. It carries a $23,337 annual salary, and council members do not receive a pension. But some council members say the job takes up so much of their time, they can't hold other full-time jobs. Council Chairwoman Rene Flowers, a health educator, and council member John Bryan, a home builder, have both given up their careers for the job. Jay Lasita gave up his job as an insurance adjuster and works part time in advertising. James Bennett has struggled to keep his lawn care business afloat, and even has listed it for sale. All this has produced a growing chorus among council members that the job be considered a full-time position complete with full-time pay. The question is whether this would produce better government or voter rebellion. "You should not have run for office if you weren't prepared to accept the pay," St. Petersburg resident Linda Villinger wrote to Littrell this week. "In the present economy, with residents losing jobs and companies taking measures to hold costs down, it is imprudent for City Council to consider giving itself a raise. You should tighten your belt, too." It's a debate that has played out in communities across Florida, where part-time council members must deal with public backlash any time they want to raise their salaries. When Orlando commissioners gave themselves a 32 percent pay raise in September 2000 to $34,562 a year, they were lambasted by the Orlando Sentinel as "Commissioners of Greed." St. Petersburg council members realize they are stepping into choppy water, but many feel strongly that they are underpaid for the untold hours they spend reviewing documents, responding to phone calls, attending meetings and other functions. Flowers has proposed $39,000 in the next budget for an increase in council car allowances, from $150 to $400 a month. This would essentially amount to a 19 percent raise, or $4,800 a year, per council member. Under her proposal, Flowers also would make an additional $5,400 as council chairwoman. "I'm not saying, pay me $50,000 a year, take care of my expenses and give me a car and all these other luxuries," said Flowers, who estimates she has sometimes spent as much as 50 hours a week on the job. "But I think there should be some additional compensation." Although council members still must decide whether they will spend more money on themselves, just the possibility has stirred up strong feelings and created some friction on the seemingly compatible new council. Six of Flowers' colleagues have said they're willing to talk about the idea, many even offering support for the raise. A seventh, council member Bill Foster, is adamantly opposed. Foster, a lawyer, said he will vote against the city's entire $462-million budget if Flowers' proposed increase goes into effect. "That's insane, to go from $150 a month to $100 a week for the car allowance," Foster said. "That's just completely unacceptable to me. It's offensive." The council has a 10 a.m. workshop today to discuss council salaries before setting a tentative property tax rate on Thursday. Foster will be out of town today. He said he was angry the council scheduled the discussion at a time when he would not be available. So he put together a three-page letter to the council last week stating his position. "If you increase council salaries, or seek to offer any other benefit to council members, you will need to find the money somewhere in the general fund by: (a) raising taxes, fees, etc., or (b) cut a proposed service or program for the community," Foster wrote. "I will not support any change to the council budget to the detriment of public safety or any other program of service offered by the city. Nor am I inclined to raise revenues for the purpose of giving myself (or you) a raise." Flowers angrily defended her proposed increase and chastised Foster for misleading the public in his memo. "Don't misrepresent the facts," Flowers said. "We're not raising the millage rate. We're not taking any services away from the community. We're not putting millions of dollars into anyone's pocket. It's very disingenuous, the way he did it. He'll have to take what comes." Council members say the low salary prevents qualified candidates with full-time jobs from running for public office, leaving the job only to those who are retired, run their own businesses or have income from other sources. The current council, with five new members, is a far younger council than any in recent history. The oldest is Earnest Williams, 53. Only those who have their own businesses, lawyers Foster and Richard D. Kriseman and insurance agent Williams, seem to be successful in balancing the demands of a full-time job with their duties on the council. Bennett said he is now finding more time to get his lawn care business back on track, but it has been a struggle and profits have been down. "I would have to have a very sympathetic boss if I was working for somebody else," said Kriseman, who is not sure whether he will support a pay increase. Littrell said it was hard for her to give up her job as executive director of the Florida Consumer Action Network, but she soon realized one of the jobs was going to be shortchanged if she kept trying to do both. "I felt like I needed to make a decision, and clearly I was dedicated to this," said Littrell, who said she thinks council members deserve a pay raise. Lynn Tipton, director of membership development for the Florida League of Cities, said most cities surveyed by her organization have part-time councils. Some, such as the city of Edgewood in Orange County (population 1,460), are paid nothing. "It's a labor of love," she said. Most municipal governments, patterned largely after English cities, were created to deliver services, Tipton said. "They were not viewed to be full-time jobs," she said. "They were viewed to be the public service requirement for business leaders of that town." Darryl Paulson, a government professor at the University of South Florida, said the public still isn't willing to consider the job full-time. "The vast majority of the public sees council members as citizen politicians who hold other jobs," Paulson said. "They look at attempts to make the salary a full-time paying position almost as an attempt at double-dipping on the part of City Council members." Paulson believes the council first needs to repair the public resentment generated by the bickering and long meetings of previous councils before it has the right to ask for a raise. "I don't have a great deal of sympathy for the City Council," he said. "In a sense, they all knew the parameters of the job when they got in." Paulson served as a consultant to St. Petersburg's Charter Review Commission, which last year studied the idea of giving the council full-time status and pay. "The consensus was it always has been and should continue to be a part-time job," said Randy Wedding, a former St. Petersburg mayor who served on the review commission. "It's not the kind of job that requires any more effort applied to it if it's done correctly."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times South Pinellas desks |
