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Clinton council adopts ordinance disclosing executive salary increases
Summary
At its Aug. 5 special meeting the Clinton City Council unanimously approved Ordinance 25-08, the required public disclosure of executive salary increases for fiscal year 2026 after staff corrected a clerical error showing a higher percentage for mayor/council pay.
The Clinton City Council on Aug. 5 unanimously adopted Ordinance 25-08, a publicly required disclosure of executive salary increases, after staff said a clerical error had made one line in the tentative budget appear larger than intended.
City manager Trevor told the council the item is a statutorily required public hearing separate from the truth-in-taxation process and summarized the proposed salary adjustments: a 2.5% cost-of-living increase across most employees, a 2% merit pool (3% for public safety roles) and targeted merit awards based on performance. Trevor said a payroll entry mistake from last year caused the mayor-and-council line to show 3.5% in some budget materials; staff recommended changing that line to reflect the intended 2.5% COLA and treating the ordinance hearing as the disclosure step required by law.
Why it matters: the ordinance satisfies a legal notice requirement and clarifies how much elected executives and other staff will receive in routine increases. During the public hearing residents argued about fairness of executive merit awards versus pay for frontline workers.
Councilmember Marie Doherty moved to approve the ordinance, and after a second the motion carried unanimously. Mayor Payne Searle said the ordinance does not itself finalize budget numbers; the final budget adoption and certification of the tax rate would follow later in the meeting.
Public feedback included a pointed appeal from Cameron Frick who urged councilmembers to remove merit raises for executive leadership and redirect funds to frontline employees: “Leadership is about sacrifice, not personal gain,” Frick said. Jim Moffett and others countered that leadership pay helps retain managers whose work keeps city services functioning.
Trevor and finance staff said the clerked budget will be corrected to show the 2.5% COLA for the mayor and council as intended, and that the ordinance simply documents and publicly discloses the executive salary changes required by the new state rule.
