When Stephen Jones takes office as mayor July 1, he’ll have the option to make 24% more than his predecessor.
By a 3-2 vote Tuesday evening at the Municipal Complex, the city council set the mayor’s annual salary for the next term at $107,000, nearly $21,000 more than current mayor Keith Gaskin’s salary of $86,104. Jones, the current Ward 5 councilman who was elected mayor earlier this month, did not attend Tuesday’s council meeting.
Vice Mayor Joseph Mickens, the outgoing Ward 2 councilman, added the item to the policy agenda after Tuesday’s meeting began. When it came time to discuss the mayor’s salary, he moved to increase it to $120,000 per year.
Gaskin, who did not seek a second term as mayor, looked shocked at the suggestion, then joked, “I may reconsider running. Can we go back?” That drew laughter from the audience and some members of the council, including Mickens.
Before making his motion, Mickens explained there were a handful of positions that work under the mayor that are paid in excess of $100,000 – including the chief operations officer, chief financial officer, police chief and fire chief. He also recounted previous efforts to raise the mayor’s salary to the highest on the city payroll.
“We tried to give Mr. (Robert) Smith a raise back in 2013, and he refused and turned it down,” Mickens said, then turned to Gaskin. “Mayor, we tried to give you one a couple of years ago, and you turned it down. Colleagues, I don’t think the mayor should be making less than his employees.”
Ward 3 Councilman Rusty Greene offered a substitute motion to table the mayor’s raise until after the new council is seated in July. But Pierre Beard, outgoing councilman for Ward 4, offered another substitute motion to set the salary at $107,000, which drew a second from Ward 1 Councilwoman Ethel Stewart.
“That’s what we agreed upon when the current mayor declined,” Beard told Gaskin. “… That’s just because that’s what I wanted you to make when you got here.”
The council attempted in September 2022 to bump the mayor’s salary to $106,000 for the next fiscal year. Ultimately, it approved raising the mayor’s salary to $93,000 and raising council salaries by $8,000 to $26,200.
Gaskin turned down his raise but accepted a 3% raise the following fiscal year that all city employees received. Greene and Ward 6 Councilwoman Jacqueline DiCicco also turned down their raises.
Greene, on Tuesday, kept pushing to delay approving more raises until the new term.
“Is this wise, for the very last meeting, for us to tie the next council into a budget restraint?” he asked. “That should be the next council’s call. There’s no reason why we can’t put this off a month.”
“It’s not wise,” said DiCicco, who did not seek a second term in her position and will leave the council June 30.
Mickens argued the council “always” makes these adjustments at the end of a term.
“No, actually when I came on board, it’s when the council voted to give themselves a raise,” DiCicco said, correcting him. “It wasn’t made by a decision of the previous council.”
Beard’s substitute motion passed with Greene and DiCicco opposed.
Jones: New salary is ‘fair’
Jones, who spoke to The Dispatch by phone after the meeting, did not commit Tuesday on whether he would accept the raise.
“I haven’t really thought about it because it’s all new to me,” Jones said, noting he missed the council meeting because he was traveling back from a doctor’s appointment in Tupelo. “I guess I can’t answer that.”
If he does accept the raise, he said, he believes it should not be effective until the next budget year, which begins Oct. 1. Otherwise three months of the new salary would come from unbudgeted funds this fiscal year.
Jones said the $107,000 salary for mayor is fair, still less than what the Columbus Light and Water general manager and Columbus Municipal School District superintendent make, for example.
CLW General Manager Angela Verdell was hired in 2021 at a salary of $180,000. Stanley Ellis, who is leaving the CMSD superintendent post at the end of the month, made $160,000 annually during his three-year tenure.
“I think it’s only fair because you’re doing just as much work, and we know it’s a 24/7 job pretty much,” Jones said.
Other business:
In other business Tuesday, the council:
■ honored longtime Building Official Kenny Wiegel with a proclamation and key to the city upon his retirement and approved hiring Nathan Katona as his replacement, effective June 30;
■ accepted the Safe Streets and Roads for All Study and approved applying for a federal implementation grant of roughly $5.8 million for pedestrian improvements along Fifth Street downtown, which would require a 20% match upon approval;
■ approved a resolution committing $15,000 toward the Mississippi University for Women Foundation hiring a public relations firm to promote keeping the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in Columbus; and
■ reappointed Brandy Gardner to a five-year term on the City Utilities Commission.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 42 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 42 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
