No to proposed salary ordinance

Last week, during a work session of the Bella Vista City Council, Alderman Larry Wilson proposed amending the city code to allow for salary increases for aldermen.

Wilson wants to tie salaries for aldermen to the maximum percentage of increase to the base compensation of non-elected city employees each year. In addition, the salary hikes also would be for elected officials who were serving when the budget was adopted. That means newly elected city officials would receive less compensation than other elected officials.

We join with aldermen Frank Anderson and Jim Wozniak in their disdain for this ordinance. Both indicated at the work session that they would vote against it when it came up for a vote.

The ordinance was expected to have its first reading at its regular meeting on Monday, June 22. If it follows the normal path of three readings, the ordinance would come up for a vote in August.

We think the council should vote this ordinance down.

Last year, we chided Wilson who headed up a two-person salary-recommendation committee about its lackluster approach to deciding salaries for elected officials. We wonder if this is an attempt by Wilson to never have to deal with salary issues again.

We have several issues with this ordinance:

• It's an automatic pay raise for the council if the council decides to raise the pay of non-elected employees.

• It doesn't allow the council itself to examine and decide each year if it wants to give itself a raise. Nor does it allow for community input for elected officials' salaries.

• All the aldermen should receive the same pay for equal work. Longevity should not be used to pay some aldermen more than others. Some of the new aldermen may work harder than longer-serving members, but aren't rewarded for that work.

We hope the public will be vocal in its feelings for the ordinance.

We urge Wilson to withdraw this ordinance from consideration, but if he doesn't we believe the council should defeat it if it comes up for a vote in August.

Editorial on 06/24/2015