A proposed City Charter amendment to remake the salary process for Council members and city executives is the cherry atop Council Chair Tommy Waters’ scheme to bestow gluttonous 64% pay raises on his members despite public outrage.
The charter change, which would cap future Council pays raises at 5% and tie them to what unionized city workers get, is a good idea that voters probably should approve in the November election.
The problem is it’s like bolting the bank vault after robbers have fled with the loot.
It locks in 2023’s 64% pay raises to $113,304 from $68,904 as the base for future raises and removes means for the Council to vote down raises.
Most important is what’s missing from the amendment: keeping a promise by Waters and Vice Chair Esther Kia‘aina to make Council work officially full time by barring members from outside employment.
The Salary Commission, to which the Council appoints or confirms four of the seven members, proposed the 64% raises on the false premise — publicly promoted by Waters and Kia‘aina — that Council members are effectively already full-time employees.
It’s simply not so. Members set their own schedules with no requirements on how much time they must give the job. They are free to do lucrative outside work, sometimes for employers with interests before the city.
Waters reported earning between $25,000 and $49,999 in 2023 as an attorney. Retiring member Calvin Say pulled in $35,000 to $74,998 from his businesses.
Member Andria Tupola, who opposed the 64% pay raise and refused it along with members Augie Tulba and Radiant Cordero, made between $150,000 and $199,999 as a consultant, while Tulba earned between $50,000 and $99,998 as a radio personality and entertainer.
Junior members Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, Val Okimoto and Matt Weyer had their hands out for more just months after running for office, knowing full well what the job paid.
Waters blocked a Council vote on bills by Tupola and Tulba to reject the pay hike on a bogus claim that members shouldn’t vote on their own salaries; the Charter gives them the explicit right to override Salary Commission recommendations.
Also not holding up are claims by Waters and the Salary Commission that higher pay will attract more competitors with greater experience for Council seats. Of the four incumbents up for reelection this year, Tulba and Cordero are unopposed, while Tupola and Kia‘aina face inexperienced opposition.
If Waters and Co. wanted to restructure Council employment status and pay, the proper way would have been to first actually make members full time by barring outside jobs, and then decide the appropriate pay for a full-time Council — with ample public hearings on both.
Instead, they first engineered grossly bloated pay raises with minimal public hearings and then reneged on the promise to end outside jobs.
It leaves the taxpaying public with the worst of both worlds: potentially conflicted part-time Council members getting full-time pay.
Given the acute problems needing service in our city, it is disheartening to see members of Waters’ majority spend their best energy, creativity and political capital to serve themselves.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
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