Naples City Council members agree to give themselves a large pay raise

Naples City Council members narrowly advanced a proposal Wednesday to give themselves a large pay raise, despite criticisms that the proposal was rushed and that the new salaries are excessive.  

The council voted 4-3 to grant the Naples mayor a 67 percent raise, from $30,000 annually to $50,000, and each council member a 70 percent raise, from a $23,500 salary to $40,000.

The proposal would require final approval from the council after a second reading.

Council members Doug Finlay, Linda Penniman and Ellen Seigel opposed the raises, which would be the largest one-time salary increases for the mayor and council in at least 40 years.

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A special advisory committee, impaneled every four years to consider the mayor and council’s salaries, had recommended the raises. The panel rejected an earlier proposal to pay a retirement package to elected officials who serve at least 20 years in office. 

Mayor Bill Barnett, elected to his fourth term in 2016, has been in office, on and off, for almost 26 years. He said he would consider a pension if a fellow council member suggested one, but the council didn't discuss his retirement Wednesday. 

Council members last gave themselves a pay raise in 2007, when they increased the mayor’s salary 28 percent, from $23,5000 to $30,000, and the council’s salary 42 percent, from $16,500 to $23,500.

The new proposal for larger raises would take effect after the council election in February. Two council members — Finlay and Sam Saad — will term out next year. A third council member, Penniman, is running for re-election to her second four-year term.

Seigel and council members Reg Buxton and Michelle McLeod were elected in 2016.

Finlay said the new proposal would be unfair to the city’s non-union employees, whose own year-over-year raise is budgeted at 3 percent.

“Every employee in the city could use the arguments here for big salary increases,” Finlay said.

Seigel suggested postponing the discussion as officials calculate the cleanup and repair costs from Hurricane Irma.

“I don’t think the timing of this issue is right for us,” she said.

The Naples mayor also receives a monthly stipend of $400. The pay package advanced Wednesday also would include an increase in the monthly stipend for council members from $200 to $300.

Naples mayor is a mostly ceremonial position and doesn't carry the same special authority granted to mayors in other Florida cities. 

Barnett stands to become one of the highest-paid mayors in Florida among similarly structured local governments, according to a Naples Daily News analysis of data from the Florida League of Cities. 

In a 2016 survey, almost 220 municipalities reported a weak-mayor system or a local government overseen similarly to Naples with a council and city manager.

Among that group, only the mayors of Doral and Tallahassee are paid more than the proposed $50,000 that Barnett would receive, records show. Doral's mayor is paid $97,000, Tallahassee's mayor $75,000. 

Among the group's councils, only Doral and Sunrise have higher salaries than the proposed $40,000 for each Naples council member. 

Doral council members are paid $46,000 and Sunrise council members $40,600, records show.

The median salary for mayors of the group is $8,250. The median council salary is $6,000. 

Almost 40 municipalities said their mayor and council don't have a salary. About 100 other cities didn't respond to the survey.

Barnett said he and his colleagues deserve the raises.

"When I hear the term 'comparable cities,' I smile," he said. "Maybe I'm prejudiced about Naples, but to me, we are the city that others would like to be compared to, not the other way around."

Some members of the special panel who reviewed the pay packages said data from other cities deserved more discussion.

Three panel members also criticized the Naples clerk’s office and said officials waited too long to provide supporting information to the volunteer committee before its meeting Sept. 29.

The process was flawed, FInlay said Wednesday.

“We need a way to fix it,” he said.