Canal Winchester council backs indexed pay for council; straw poll favors mayor pay at eight times council rate

Canal Winchester City Council members spent substantial time June 30 reviewing Charter Review Commission recommendations to change how elected officials are paid, including indexing council pay to Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) minimums and setting the mayor’s base salary as a multiple of that indexed council rate.

Councilors and staff said indexing would remove the need for council to regularly set its own pay and would align compensation with OPERS contributing-service rules. The Charter Review Commission recommended that each council member be compensated at a rate “equivalent to qualify for 1 full month's contributing service to the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System,” and that the council president and vice president receive modest percentage supplements for added duties.

Why it matters: Council pay and mayor pay are high-attention items for voters and affect candidate recruitment. Council members said indexing could provide consistency; some argued a range preserves flexibility for future councils.

Councilors debated two ways to write mayor pay into the charter: a dollar range (the Commission proposed $60,000–$85,000) or an indexing formula. Several council members favored tying the mayor’s base salary to the same OPERS-linked index used for council and adopting a multiple of that figure so the mayor’s pay would move with the OPERS minimum. At the meeting a councilor summarized computed examples given during discussion: “Seven times is 62,740; eight times is 71,703; nine times is 80,666,” which the group used to compare the Commission’s $60,000–$85,000 range.

There was no formal resolution adopting either approach. Instead, council conducted a straw poll that indicated support for using the multiple approach and landing on eight times the OPERS-linked council base as the working number; members said, if adopted by voters, the change could take effect Jan. 1, 2026. City legal staff cautioned that charter amendments placed on the ballot must follow state election procedures; as council legal counsel put it, “the mayor does not have veto authority on putting charter amendments to the ballot.”

Discussion-only items included whether a range gives future councils flexibility and whether indexing should take effect immediately or only at the start of the next mayoral term. Several councilors said they wanted candidates to know the salary they would be running for (a reason given for determining the salary prior to filing deadlines).

No formal vote to place salary language on the ballot was recorded at the meeting; councilors directed staff to continue drafting language and to return for second and third readings. The council adjourned after a formal motion to end the meeting passed by roll call.