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Riverton council directs staff to tie elected pay to staff cost-of-living adjustments, pauses council raises for one year
Summary
Council discussed code language that currently pegs elected-official pay to a human-resources grade and directed staff to prepare code changes to instead align future adjustments with employee COLA; the council signaled it will hold council pay steady for the coming year while allowing an adjustment to the mayor's salary this year.
Riverton 'At a March 25 work session, the Riverton City Council reviewed a staff proposal to change how elected-official pay is adjusted and directed staff to bring a code amendment for approval. Staff proposed removing a provision that pegs elected compensation to a specific human-resources grade (grade 20) and instead to treat elected officials like other city employees for annual cost-of-living adjustments set during the budget process.
The change would prevent a one-time benchmark update from producing a large automatic increase and make elected-official adjustments mirror the annual employee merit/cola process. Assistant/City staff member Kevin (identified in the meeting transcript as the presenter) told the council that, if left unchanged, the current code linkage would have produced an increase of just under 10 percent in the upcoming year.
Council members discussed whether to preserve a larger mayoral adjustment made in 2019 and whether to hold council salaries steady this year to allow the mayor's pay to move closer to peer-city averages. Council member McKay said the mayor currently earns about 95 percent of the peer average while council members earn about 122 percent; McKay suggested a one-year mayoral adjustment followed by tying future changes to the employee COLA. Council member Broker and others agreed the council's pay could be held for the coming year to avoid another immediate jump.
Kevin confirmed the recommended code change ' to replace the grade-20 peg with the same annual percentage that staff receives through the budget/merit process ' could be prepared for council action on consent at a forthcoming meeting. He said staff will return with a draft code amendment while noting the council's direction is already on the record in the minutes.
The staff presentation included numeric examples: the mayoral salary under the grade-20 peg would be $49,598.58 and the council member salary cited on the slide is $27,059.25. Council members repeatedly emphasized that the intent of the change is administrative: to align elected-official adjustments with regular employee compensation adjustments and avoid recurring ad hoc debates about pay.
Next steps: staff will draft the code amendment and place it on an upcoming meeting agenda; the council signaled support for holding council salaries steady for the coming budget year while allowing the mayor's adjustment and then moving both into the regular employee COLA process.
Ending: The work-session discussion produced direction but no formal ordinance or resolution vote. Staff said it will return with the code amendment language on consent as soon as possible.
