Top city execs get raises as large as $15K a year, then lose them

More than a dozen of the city government’s top executives received significant pay increases in early September, according to city records. But those raises lasted for only one paycheck.

The raises, given to many of the city’s department directors and executive managers around Sept. 9, were as high as almost $16,000 a year, or 22 percent, in a year when the rank and file received a 2 percent cost of living adjustment that in some cases didn’t cover the increased cost of health insurance.

But the raises were short-lived. They were originally intended to rectify disparities among the upper echelon, but soon after they were implemented, they were determined to be too much too soon by city leaders, Mayor Teresa Tomlinson said.

On Sept. 23, the 16 executives received one paycheck reflecting their new higher salaries before the raises were rescinded and their pay returned to previous levels. That, Tomlinson said, was because solving one problem was creating more problems.

In the last year, the city has had to replace five department directors, and leadership determined that a salary of $88,464 would be the pay for new, incoming directors, Tomlinson said. But that put the new directors — Reather Hollowell in human resources, Holli Browder in parks and recreation, Angelica Alexander in finance, Rosa Evans at Metra and John Hudgison in inspections and codes — ahead of some department directors who have many more years with the city.

That caused not only morale problems, but potential legal problems, which meant even more directors’ salaries had to be raised to fend off even more problems, Tomlinson said.

“If you move those directors, then you have to move the other directors and so on and so forth and you begin to have a domino effect,” Tomlinson said. “So in observing this over a period of time, there have been many discussions of the fact that this is a problem that was making us all fairly nervous and it wasn’t good for morale.”

Nancy Boren, director of elections and registration, and Betty Middleton, tax assessor, were among the most underpaid, as is reflected by their raises. Boren’s salary saw the largest temporary hike, from $72,600 to $88,464 (an increase of $15,857 or 22 percent). Middleton’s salary jumped 13 percent, from $82,148 to $92,093, a hike of almost $10,800. But raising those salaries caused more problems, because then those workers’ salaries were out of kilter with those above them, which caused what Tomlinson called a domino effect.

“So what seems to be just a simple fix of moving just a few people begins to put people at the same rank as people who have much larger departments, much more tenure, which really does subject you to criticism, accurate or inaccurate, that you have an arbitrary pay schedule,” Tomlinson said.

That led to the pay increases for about 16 top executives, which apparently caused more problems than Tomlinson and Columbus Council were willing to tolerate. So during an executive session Tuesday evening, the decision was made to rescind the raises and put them off until budget discussions next year for the fiscal 2018 budget.

“What happened was that when we presented it to council, they had no idea how many positions this would affect when you begin pulling levers — and why you had to do it that way,” Tomlinson said. “Because it affected so many positions, they feel this needs to be done in the budget process, and I completely agree with them.”

At Large Councilor Judy Thomas, when asked about Council’s reaction to the list of raises, declined to comment.

“That was in executive session, so I don’t feel comfortable talking about it,” Thomas said.

The city’s other at large councilor, Skip Henderson, was also reluctant to discuss matters taken up in executive session, but did say Tomlinson’s description of the situation was “a fair assessment” of the situation.

“I just think it was a situation where council decided that, like the mayor said, we should wait and follow the (budget) process, particularly in light of some of the budgetary challenges we’re facing,” Henderson said.

Asked if councilors were surprised by the scope of the pay hike package presented to them, Henderson said, “I think the results speak to whether or not council was a little surprised.”

City Attorney Clifton Fay said discussing personnel and compensation are valid reasons for Council to go into executive session. But Fay said he wasn’t in the session because he was one of the people affected.

“You can discuss compensation for people in executive session, as a personnel matter,” Fay said. “It was a personnel matter and the people affected left the room.”

Tomlinson said she would revisit the situation and propose as much of a pay increase for as many city employees as the city’s projected revenue will allow next year in the Fiscal 2018 budget process.

“The effort to fix this has been suspended and it will be handled through the full budget process after the first of the year,” Tomlinson said. “There are several reasons I think that’s a good idea. One, it’s very broad and has many moving parts.

“I will propose either a comprehensive plan or incremental advancements of a comprehensive plan. I don’t know yet. I don’t even have an assumption of what kind of money we’ll have to work with, if any at all.”

Some of the other highest increases that were granted and rescinded were in the executive management suite. City manager Isaiah Hugley’s salary jumped from $141,423 to $156,105. City Attorney Clifton Fay and Deputy City Managers Pam Hodge and Lisa Goodwin’s salaries went from $113,242 to $121,949. Internal Auditor John Redmond’s salary went from $78,189 to $92,943.

At the other end of the spectrum, IT Director Forrest Toelle got the smallest increase, a 2.5 percent hike from $90,676 to $92,942.

Other raises were:

▪ Police Chief Ricky Boren, from $107,220 to $112,414

▪ Fire Chief Jeff Meyer, from $103266 to $108,210

▪ Prison Warden Dwight Hamrick, from $86,904 to $96,064

▪ Engineering Director Donna Newman, from $97,648 to $102,591

▪ Public Works Director Pat Biegler, from $90,676 to $95,266

▪ HR Director Reather Hollowell, from $88,464 to $92,943

▪ Planning Director Rick Jones, from $88,464 to $92,943

▪ Tax Assessor Betty Middleton, from $82,148 to $92,942

This story was originally published October 1, 2016 at 8:52 PM with the headline "Top city execs get raises as large as $15K a year, then lose them."