Members of the Oak Harbor City Council just received significant raises.
As unanimously approved by volunteer salary commission vote on Tuesday, council pay jumped from $775 a month to $1,200. In addition, the council members continue to have the option of enrolling in a program of health insurance and other benefits that’s valued at $950 a month.
The commission considered data from other cities, but in the end looked to the City of Anacortes to set the salaries — although the value of the benefits package didn’t appear to weigh into the final calculation.
Similarly, the commission looked to Anacortes for a comparison before handing Oak Harbor’s mayor a large raise earlier this year.
According to David Goldman, Oak Harbor’s deputy city administrator, some cities don’t pay their council, some pay per meeting and some pay per month. An average monthly pay for 205 cities — some similar to Oak Harbor’s population, some not — comes to $568.
The data is insufficient, Goldman said, as benefit information was not provided.
The commission looked the closest at 16 cities provided by Association of Washington Cities data. It was unclear why the commission looked to those 16 cities for comparisons among the 261 municipalities in the state. Of these 16, only five have a population within 10,000 of Oak Harbor’s.
The City of Edgewood, with a population of 14,080, had the lowest paid council on this particular list at $850 a month.
“If you just look at these numbers, we have fallen behind,” said Tiffany Scribner, chairperson.
But, as Goldman pointed out, the data didn’t tell the entire story.
In an email to the News-Times, Edgewood’s Human Resources Director Jill Schwerzler-Herrera wrote that Edgewood contributes 1.3% of the city council stipend to a retirement account, for a total benefits cost of $11.06 per month compared to Oak Harbor’s $950.
When Oak Harbor council members were asked how many hours they work, the average was around 24 a week, with Christopher Wiegenstein at the lowest with 15 and Eric Marshall at the highest with up to 40 hours some weeks.
While no one can dictate how many hours an elected official works, Commissioner Mary Elizabeth Himes recommended using a 30 hour per week metric to set an “expectation.”
“It’s setting a bar that hasn’t previously been set for them, just kind of willy nilly showing up,” she said.
Commissioner Melissa McCumber said the mayor’s recent salary change was primarily based on data from Anacortes. Each Anacortes city council member makes $1,200 a month.
When McCumber asked for benefit comparables, Human Resources Director Emma House said that Anacortes, like Oak Harbor, belongs to the Association of Washington Cities. As such, its council is eligible for health insurance benefits. However, because most of the council opted out, they do not utilize the program at all.
An Anacortes official confirmed that council members do not receive benefits. While Anacortes has a smaller population than Oak Harbor (about 18,000 versus 25,000), the former has a significantly larger general fund budget.
On the Oak Harbor council, only one member opted out of the benefits program.
Ultimately, the commission didn’t discuss its thoughts on the relevance of benefit costs. A motion was made to bring the council up to $1,200 a month, and it passed.
After the vote, Scribner expressed appreciation to her fellow commissioners.
“This has been a particularly hot topic, and I am very proud of the work we’ve done,” she said. “I think we are doing good for the city in ways that will be felt for a long time to come.”
