At the April 1 city council meeting, Southgate introduced an ordinance to amend an existing ordinance regarding the council and mayor’s salaries. Many council members were left concerned; one even took to Facebook to inform community members, sparking community backlash.
Ordinance 26-03 was introduced to rewrite Ordinance 91-11, which was originally enacted in 1991. During the first reading, City Attorney Mary Ann Stewart stated that the ordinance would “increase city council member pay from $2,019 per annum to $5,000 per annum” and would increase the mayor’s pay from “$4,897 per annum to $12,000 per annum.” The increases, if passed, wouldn’t become effective until January 2027.
The changes come from both the Department of Local Government’s suggestion and a survey of council and mayor compensation across cities in Campbell County.
Despite the proposed changes to compensation, Stewart said her main concern was correcting the language of the ordinance. It originally stated that the pay for the council and the mayor would increase annually on March 1.
“I don’t think that the city has ever done that,” she stated at the April 1 meeting.
A few days after the ordinance was introduced, council member Mark Messmer posted on a Southgate community Facebook page, asking for feedback on the compensation increase.
Many community residents felt that an increase in pay was not something the council should approve of, some asking what the reasoning behind the increase was. Council member Tom Whitehead responded to those questioning the increase by showing a photo of the survey findings for Campbell County cities.
Council member Elizabeth Hartman suggested scheduling a special meeting so residents could ask questions directly to the council and mayor. A meeting was held on April 8 at the Southgate Community Center, with a few residents in attendance. Here, Stewart, as well as Mayor Hamberg, clarified the ordinance and its need and answered questions from residents.
“The dollar figures that were thrown out were thrown out mainly because of them being the median,” Hamberg said about the compensation changes.
Many residents were also concerned about the timing of the ordinance.
According to Stewart, the calculation from DLG regarding the city governments’ compensations comes out around April.
“The statute requires that the ordinance be passed, as I said in the election year, and it has to be before the first Monday in May,” Stewart explained. “So, you have a short window.”
After the discussion, many council members felt that the compensation did not need to be changed; some even suggested lowering it.
“I would suggest leaving it as is and just changing the wording,” said council member Aileen Okura.
The city attorney incorporated the recommendations from the special meeting into the ordinance for the second reading, which took place on April 15. In this reading, the compensation for both the council and the mayor stayed the same at around $2,000 for council and just under $5,000 for the mayor, but the wording was updated to meet the current standards.
Council voted unanimously to approve the ordinance, keeping everyone’s compensation rates unchanged. If the council ever wishes to make changes to compensation, it would need to wait two years to change the council’s and four years to change the mayor’s, as changes can only be made during election years.