SURVEY RESULTS: What should happen with pay for the Mayor and City Council?

Take a Pay Cut: 60%
Stay the Same:  33%
Get a Raise:        4% 


I am shocked at these results. 

In these days of unemployment and low pay, you have voted to reduce the pay of your top city officials?

By voting as you did, you have agreed to cut the pay of all other city workers since that’s the reason for their voluntary pay cut.

Help me understand why you voted this way?

The city council pay seems fair to me at $40,000. By design, it’s a part time position which allows council members to hold down other jobs. I can't see any of them working council business on a full time basis. 

But the mayor’s pay of $46,000 seems woefully low to me. Although listed as a part time position, we all know the mayor works full time hours, plus some. I can only imagine what folks would say if he had another job somewhere in addition to his mayor position. 

Besides his daily mayoral duties, he’s often seen at banquets, funerals, games, crime scenes, and other community events. I guess he does all that on his own time.

Personally, I don’t completely understand why the proposal to cut pay wasn’t agreed to (or not) among the mayor and all the council members before it was announced and put to a vote. And then, when it was put a vote, the deciding vote was absent. Why not table the vote until all were in attendance? The needless uproar in City Council should have been avoided.

Chester will never attract top political talent with those salaries. Unless you have a couple pensions coming in, most qualified candidates can make more on a job. 

I propose that the mayor becomes a full time position with a full time salary.