Urbana committee advances competing salary ordinances for mayor, clerk and council to full council

The Committee of the Whole on the evening advanced two competing ordinances to the City Council that would fix salaries for Urbana elected officials for the 2025–2029 term.

One ordinance, sponsored by Councilmember Shandra, would set the city clerk’s salary at a level intended to correct pay compression between the elected city clerk and the deputy city clerk; City Clerk Darcy said her proposal targets a midpoint salary consistent with professional clerk salary surveys. “The clerk’s office oversees all veil operations for the entire city,” Darcy said, describing duties that include keeping contracts, ordinances and minutes, acting as the Open Meetings Act (OMA) designee and serving as the public-facing office for FOIA intake. Darcy told the committee that the deputy city clerk’s recent market adjustment left the deputy at 98 percent of the clerk salary and that the proposed adjustment would bring that ratio closer to the city’s internal policy ceiling.

A second ordinance, sponsored and explained in detail by Diane (as presented to the committee), proposed smaller, uniform percentage increases across elected positions and emphasized different philosophical priorities,…