Milton mayor gets a pay raise. A much bigger one could be coming
Milton City Council voted unanimously to give Mayor Shanna Styron-Sherrell a $9,000 pay raise on July 20, with a likelihood she will be approved for another pay increase of more than $66,000 in the 2021 budget.
Her annual salary will increase from $18,000 to $27,000. She is not eligible for benefits, according to the ordinance.
“This is resetting the base salary for the mayor position moving forward, and it is appropriate to do so given the amount of time that has gone by without a raise for the mayor position,” Council member Todd Morton said in the council meeting on Monday.
Milton, a town of 8,400, elects a “strong mayor,” who is the executive of the city government and not a voting member of the council.
The mayor’s current compensation had been $18,000 since 2002, the bill said. The salary increase will draw from funds allocated for the general fund, the water utility and electric utility funds, stormwater fund and the information technology fund.
Council member Morton, who sponsored the bill, did respond to requests for comment.
Joint mayor-administrator salary
In a separate discussion, council members tabled a bill to combine the mayor and city administrator roles and salaries. That would increase the mayor’s pay to $93,700 with benefits.
The salary increase would take funding from the general fund, electric utility fund, water utility fund, stormwater fund, information technology fund and vehicle maintenance fund, staff said at a July 20 meeting.
“Expenditures in each of these funds are currently trending below budgeted amounts and should be able to accommodate the compensation adjustment,” the bill said.
Milton has struggled to find or keep a city administrator.
The last one was hired in February 2019 and left two months after. Prior, the public works director served as city administrator in 2018 before leaving to work in Orting. For the 2020 budget, the city decided to use the salary to give department directors pay raises and hire a planning manager, Styron-Sherrell told The News Tribune.
City staff presented salaries of mayors in similar-sized cities on Monday. Mayors in cities with city administrators made an average of $10,100 annually. Those with no city administrator pay mayors between $150,444 in Othello to $54,996 in Langley.
Most of the council voiced approval of the measure but decided to wait for more citizen comments.
Council member Susan Johnson said she would definitely approve the combined position and salary in the 2021 budget.
“I have no problem with that,” she said. “I would support this, I’m just asking that we wait until August.”
Some immediately wanted to approve the mayor’s salary for a total of $93,700, including Council members Morton and Phil Linden.
“We have a strong mayor and a weak salary,” Linden said.
Police Chief Tony Hernandez said everyone has been busy during the coronavirus pandemic, and the mayor has stepped up every day.
“How long does a person have to be a martyr?” he asked the council. “She has taken this on because she doesn’t have a choice.”
The council decided to move the vote to Aug. 3.
‘More than part-time’
Styron-Sherrell was elected in 2017. She runs her own photography business and had been pursuing a bachelor’s degree. Styron-Sherrell said she had to withdraw from college to dedicate her time to the position.
“I have found that I couldn’t balance three careers,” she said in an interview with The News Tribune.
She said the role of a strong mayor means being involved daily.
“It’s not coming in, signing resolutions and contracts and cutting ribbons and having coffee with residents. You really have to understand the issues,” she said. “This is more than part time.”
Styron-Sherrell said to create a higher expectation of a mayor, there needs to be a higher salary.
“You can’t expect a person to run a city with a $26 million budget, 47 employees, and two unions and make below minimum wage,” she said.
