Mammoth’s town council approves ordinance granting itself a raise
At its regular meeting Wednesday in Suite Z, Mammoth Lakes Town Council approved an ordinance that will raise Councilmembers’ salary from $300 to $735 per month. The vote was 3-2, with Eastman and Wood dissenting, as they did at the previous Town Council meeting.
The pay bump represents a 145 percent increase to Councilmembers’ salary.
However, Councilmembers have never received a raise since the Town’s incorporation 29 years ago.
According to Town Attorney Andrew Morris, government code allows the Council to increase its $300 baseline salary by 5 percent, or $15, each year. 29 x 15 = 435, which in addition to $300 brings Councilmembers up to a $735/month salary.
Councilmember John Eastman vociferously opposed the pay raise. “I’m not going to debate the worthiness or unworthiness of a 145 percent salary increase,” he said. Instead, he noted that within the last two years, Council had voted to take away Planning Commissioners’ wage of $200 per meeting, or $400 per month. Moreover, he argued, because this has been the worst drought in 37 years, “we’re still likely to come up about a million dollars short to balance our budget this year.”
“A big portion of my not supporting this proposal is that the salary increase [cumulatively] for five Councilmembers amounts to about $30,000 a year, and that’s $30,000 in expenditures each year that will be added to our Town budget,” he said.
“We struggled to find money to support the Whitmore Swim Team, and the Fourth of July Fireworks at Crowley Lake … My point is, I don’t see how we can ask for sacrifices, and be facing a shortfall, and on the other hand give ourselves a 145 percent increase.”
Councilmember Eastwood also noted that while the Town Council salary may not have kept up with the Consumer Price Index over the last 29 years, “I suspect that the health benefit package that the Councilmembers get has.”
Mayor Rick Wood agreed. “I can’t find a persuasive rationale to do this,” he said. Mayor Wood went on to speculate that Councilmembers are deserving of a salary closer to $50,000; but of the eight candidates running this year, he said, “I imagine you would find that they’re not running for the money.”
“It’s still a job that you do for the challenge,” Mayor Pro Tem Jo Bacon concurred. “[But] for other people, [the raise] may make a significant difference in whether they decide to pursue running for this crazy job.”
“We have had some good candidates come forward in this next election,” said Councilmember Michael Raimondo. “I think this definitely helped.”
Town Council candidate Cleland Hoff told the Council that she never could have voted herself a raise. But, “If you do that, that will allow me to make Council pretty much my full-time job, because I am so good at living close to the bone,” she said.
While Hoff said she applied for the job before she knew about the raise, “I have to admit when I got some of the paperwork and read it, and all the meetings and all the commissions that you guys are on, I threw up in my mouth a little bit.”
In other words, a raise might not be a bad thing.
