The Castle Rock City Council approved a salary increase for Mayor Paul Helenberg and councilmembers during an October meeting. (Recorded by the city of Castle Rock)
The mayor of the city with the smallest population in Cowlitz County has the second-highest salary of all the county mayors thanks to a council-voted pay increase last fall that has now made filing to run in the upcoming Castle Rock mayoral race the most expensive of all the open seats in November.
The mayor of Longview earns about $300 more than in Castle Rock, while about 35,000 more people live in Longview than the latter.
Castle Rock and Kelso are the two cities in the county where the city council is the sole definer of their pay, instead of having an appointed salary commission make recommendations. Castle Rock is also the only city in the county without a city manager or administrator on staff to handle some of the city’s day-to-day operations, which means one less payroll on the city’s budget.
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A salary bump that was approved by the Castle Rock City Council in October increased Mayor Paul Helenberg‘s compensation by $800 a month starting in January. Helenberg now earns $1,200 per month as opposed to the previous $400 to oversee the city of about 2,400 people.
Paul Helenberg
Now it costs $144 to file to run for Castle Rock mayor — $20 more than any of the four Longview City Council races on the ballot this year. The increase affected the election filing fee because the fee is set at 1% of the reimbursement for most elected positions.
The deadline to file for the open seats is May 19. A candidate for mayor could avoid paying the filing fee by submitting 144 signatures from Castle Rock voters to the Cowlitz County Elections Office along with their candidacy form.
Neither Helenberg nor any Castle Rock City Council member responded to The Daily News requests for further comment about the new salaries.
Mayors vs. city managers
Castle Rock councilmembers said during the October meeting the pay increase was deserved because of the work Helenberg does.
Some councilmembers argued during the October meeting that because the city doesn’t have a manager or administrator, the mayor’s role is closer to a fulltime job than many other elected offices. It also leaves the city with one fewer higher-paid employee.
“It’s been five years. Especially for Paul, because he does a lot of work that it would cost us a lot of money to get a person to come in and do all of that,” councilor John Earl Queen said during the meeting.
An analysis by Castle Rock staff before the raise showed Helenberg made less money than the mayors of other Washington cities around the same size. Gold Bar and Westport, both of which have population of around 2,300 and no city manager, pay their mayors around $1,000 per month.
The increase now places Mayor Helenberg’s pay above average for the smaller cities in the analysis and above the mayor’s salaries in Kelso, Woodland and Kalama. The mayor of Longview receives $1,560 per month.
The council also voted to increase their own compensation from $200 per month to $300, taking effect after the next election for each council seat. The increase passed 4-1 with councilor Art Lee opposing. Both pay rates in Castle Rock had not been changed since since 2017.
“I don’t think most councilmembers do it for the money, per se. I think they do it because they want to make a difference, they want to help out. So that’s always a hard one for me,” councilman Lee Kessler said during the meeting.
Longview, Woodland and Kalama have a salary commission to decide if and when a pay raise should be considered, then bring their proposal to the city council for a final vote. Kalama switched to the salary commission approach last spring, with council members saying they wanted to make the decision less political.
