Cleveland Heights committee pauses salary-ordinance review after Archer reports missing; members propose stipend increase and pay-differential study

The Cleveland Heights Administrative Services Committee on Feb. 24 paused detailed consideration of Salary Ordinance 23-2025 after consultant reports from Archer were not delivered to staff.

Committee members said the Archer study and a requested list of positions that would be adjusted were not available for the meeting. “We have not received them. So we are going to skip that,” the committee chair said, opening the item and asking members to review a condensed salary-survey document posted on the city website from the Ohio Municipal League while they await Archer’s materials.

The missing materials curtailed the committee’s planned in-depth review of the salary ordinance. Committee members and staff nevertheless raised several substantive proposals for later consideration: a $25 increase to the $90 per-meeting stipend paid to most boards and commissions (raising it to $115), adding the Landmark Commission (which currently receives no stipend) to the list of compensated bodies, and exploring set pay differentials for department heads to address pay compression between chiefs and subordinates.

Committee members said the proposed stipend change would apply to the Landmark Commission’s seven members if the amendment is adopted. One member asked whether stipends should be paid per meeting or capped per month; committee members noted that the Planning Commission’s stipend is limited per month while most other bodies are paid per meeting.

Pay compression and differential proposals focused on the city’s public safety leadership. One speaker said discussions already were underway with IAFF Local 402 about creating a mechanism to ensure assistant chiefs and chiefs maintain a salary differential over the employees they supervise. “Local 402 may actually be coming to council to have this conversation,” the committee chair said, describing the topic as both a practical and philosophical question about hierarchical pay structure.

Staff said any substantive ordinance changes likely would be handled in a separate piece of legislation rather than folded into the immediate salary ordinance, and that timing is ordinarily coordinated with collective-bargaining effective dates in the spring. Committee members asked staff to seek the missing Archer reports and the list of positions Archer proposed adjusting and to invite representatives from the fire, police and service departments to the next Administrative Services Committee meeting to discuss compression and differential proposals.

No formal vote or ordinance change occurred at the meeting. The committee deferred further action until the requested materials and departmental representatives are available for a fuller review.

The meeting also included discussion of other administrative items, including vacancies on city commissions and committees and scheduling for future committee meetings.