As elected leaders tasked with shaping Gilbert, Town Council members should be worth its weight in gold but are earning peanuts, according to one Gilbert resident.
“I’m here this evening to point out a huge discrepancy in compensation in the Town of Gilbert, the largest town in the United States,” Realtor Tom Smith told the council at its May 2 meeting.
“Gilbert’s median household income is $142,804, the highest in the state, seventh highest in the country – largely due to the past council decisions in attracting great employers. Thank you and all you past ones.”
Gilbert currently has roughly 280,000 residents and is expected to reach build out within a decade, boasting a total expected population of 330,000. According to an April report by SmartAsset, the median annual income sits at $104,802.
“The lowest fulltime town employee starts around $58,000 and the highest paid employees hover around $250,000,” Smith said. “We pay for the cream of the crop and we expect to get what we pay for.
“But here’s what we don’t pay for the best: We have a mayor who receives $43,000 and a council that only gets $21,000. My first suggestion is you may want to change your career and apply to MacDonald’s because you’re going to make more money. Municipalities of our size pay far differently nationwide.”
House and Senate members of the Arizona Legislature earn $24,000 annually plus a per diem. The session per diem rate for state legislators residing in Maricopa County is $35 a day for the first 120 days of regular and special sessions and $10 a day for all following days. For legislators residing outside of Maricopa County, the per diem is higher.
Smith said other municipalities comparable in size to Gilbert – such as Buffalo, New York; Chula Vista, California; and St. Louis, Missouri – pay their mayors between $132,000 and $158,000 a year. Their council members are paid between $61,000 and $75,000 a year, he added.
Last week, a salary review commission in Buffalo – population 278,349 – reportedly recommended a 12.63% pay hike for the mayor and council members, which if approved would boost that city’s mayor’s salary to $178,000 and the council members’ to about $84,000.
And Gilbert is “by the far the lowest” in pay for its elected officials in the Valley, Smith said.
“Phoenix pays their council three times what ours is paid,” he said. “Mesa pays their council twice what Gilbert pays. Tempe’s mayor is paid over 50% more. Mesa’s mayor is paid nearly 70% more than ours.
“Gilbert is a far more affluent community and growing while those mentioned are not.”
Phoenix is the fifth largest municipality in the country with 1.6 million, Tempe has about 186,000 and Mesa has over 500,000 residents.
“We need the best and brightest leading us,” Smith continued. “The compensations should be as such we attract that kind of talent for the future. And you’re not going to attract talent, in my opinion, by paying somebody that’s working full time, all of you are working full time.
“You guys work many hours and those of us around you know that. And you’re not being compensated enough and I hope in the future that can be changed.”
Council members Chuck Bongiovanni created two franchises, Yung Koprowski owns an engineering firm, Jim Torgeson has a sign-making company and Bobbi Buchli is a Realtor.
Council members Kathy Tilque retired after decades of heading the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, Scott Anderson retired from the town as a planning director and Mayor Brigette Peterson last worked in the private sector in 2009.
Gilbert council and mayor haven’t seen a raise for quite some time and in 2019 council members actually saw their paychecks cut to the current $21,012 from $24,239 a year.
While council members’ pay was rolled back to what it was in 2008, the mayor’s salary was kept at $43,631 a year because the council in 2018 considered it a full-time job.
In the Town’s Personnel Policy and Guidelines, the mayor and council jobs are classified as “elected officials” and are not specifically classified as full time or part time.
Despite the low pay, the job comes with perks that include health coverage, retirement benefits from the state’s Elected Officials Retirement Plan, a car and a communication allowances and reimbursement for work-related duties – all paid by taxpayers.
Four council members and the mayor are open to more compensation. Bongiovanni and Anderson did not respond to the Gilbert Sun News’ questions about the issue.
“I lose money serving this town,” said Torgeson, who was leaving one meeting at Town Hall for another one day last week. “I put in 40 hours and lose money in my business to serve the town – $21,000 doesn’t make up for the hole; it offsets it but doesn’t fill it. I think it’s $1,275 a month after taxes.”
Torgeson said he would advocate for a higher salary for future council members because the pay does not reflect they put into the job.
“The pay for council is less than minimum wage,” he said.
According to Town Clerk Chaveli Herrera, any salary changes for the mayor and council must be made through a resolution and would not take effect until the next election cycle when members take office.
Torgeson also said that the mayor’s wage needs to be higher. He noted that Peterson “buys things to donate them at grand openings” out of her own pocket so she is “not hitting the town budget for it.”
“I think she is underpaid,” he said. “The office is underpaid. The compensation for mileage is grossly inadequate.”
Torgeson said while his car was out of commission for a couple of days, he had to take Uber to get to places to take care of town business.
While he spent hundreds of dollars for Uber, he was told his monthly allotment for mileage is capped at $160.50 a month.
Offering more pay for those who sit at the dais also would open it up to more people, Torgeson said, because right now only those who are well-off or retired can afford to serve.
“For instance, an HVAC guy gets paid well but how many hours can he take off to serve?” he said. “Not that many. If you’re a teacher, can you do it? No.
“We’re not in a good place for attracting everybody. Do I think we should be paying $150,000? No. I don’t want to bring career politicians.”
Buchli said, “I completely agree the mayor and council’s salary should be increased.
“Gilbert is far behind with the majority of other towns and cities with the same demographics and population. Our officials should have a higher salary scale, which would allow more focus of their time on town needs, the residents and the duties they were elected to do.”
Buchli said in order for Gilbert to be in line with its peers, the mayor’s pay should be increased to $79,900 annually and council’s pay to $49,900 a year.
“Even this potential increase, I am told, is still not in line for council members, with the lowest-paid employee in the town of Gilbert,” she added.
Tilque said while the mayor’s position is definitely a full-time commitment, she’s seen over the years that the hours council members put into their positions vary but that the current council “has committed full-time hours.”
“The one area I believe we could explore is a cost-of-living increase each year as that was taken away when a previous council reduced the annual compensation amount,” Tilque said.
“These positions do take a toll on the ability to run your business, be employed by a company or expand any consulting opportunities,” she added. “But serving the community isn’t about making money, it is a labor of love and commitment to represent the entire community well.”
Koprowski said she agreed that offering higher compensation can attract more qualified and experienced candidates to run for office.
“Candidates may be hesitant to run due to concerns about the workload and the level of responsibility that comes with holding public office,” Koprowski said. “You can see that everyone currently in office has greater than average flexibility and financial independence due to being retired or not having another job outside of the home or being self-employed.”
Peterson said when she ran for council and for mayor, she was aware of the time commitment and that the compensation wasn’t a factor for her.
“While I am grateful that I can serve the residents fulltime as the community expects and deserves without juggling other professional responsibilities, I absolutely understand and respect that each elected official serves at the level they can based on many factors,” Peterson said.
She added that she agreed with then-Councilman Jared Taylor when he stated five years ago, “our time here as elected officials is a matter of service and this isn’t a job.”
That said, Peterson added that it would be good policy and practice for the council to review and benchmark council’s compensation package items on an approved predetermined schedule.
“If this council chooses to move forward with reviewing, I would welcome a public discussion to see if items should be adjusted,” Peterson said.
