With the clock ticking on passing the city’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget, almost $89,000 in raises and benefit increases for the city council — and where they came from — are still up for debate.
“I didn’t add it to the budget,” Ward 2 Councilman Joseph Mickens told The Dispatch Wednesday morning.
Less than an hour later, CFO Jim Brigham told The Dispatch Mickens pulled him aside following the council’s Aug. 20 meeting to increase the council members’ annual salaries to $30,000 and the mayor’s to $110,000 in the budget.
“The person that brought it to me was Councilman Mickens,” Brigham said. “But I’m not sure who else was involved — who he talked to.”
Brigham said there were no “scientific” discussions to calculate the raises, and he used numbers Mickens told him. But in a phone call with The Dispatch Wednesday afternoon, Mickens said he stood by what he said earlier that morning.
As of now, the budget bumps the majority of the council’s annual salaries up from $26,200, and Ward 6 Councilwoman Jacqueline DiCicco and Ward 3 Councilman Rusty Greene up from $18,200, since they declined their last raises in 2022. Mayor Keith Gaskin also declined a raise at that time, leaving his salary at $83,000 annually.
During a special call meeting Monday, DiCicco objected to the proposed increases, since the bump would be a 14% increase for the majority of council members, while most city employees are set to receive 3%. Instead, DiCicco said the council should only receive a 3% increase, if at all.
Hearing DiCicco’s objections during the meeting, Mickens said he would have no problem with removing the raises. The council, however, postponed voting on its raises, and the FY 2025 budget, until its upcoming work session set for 2 p.m. Thursday. Statutorily, the city must approve the budget by Sept. 15.
Mickens has seen the city go through several pay increases for council members.
In 2013, when council members voted to accept a 23% raise from $17,500 to $21,500 — despite the raise not appearing on the agenda available to the public — Mickens moved to accept the increase, and it passed on a 3-2 vote. The council later rescinded the raise on a 5-1 vote in the first meeting of the 2013-17 term. Mickens was the only dissenting vote.
Mickens also proposed a $3,000 raise in 2017, which would have brought the council up to $20,500, though the motion failed. Again, the item was not made available on the agenda to the public before the meeting began.
Mickens also moved for the council’s last raises in 2022 that DiCicco and Greene declined. On Wednesday, Mickens told The Dispatch he moved for those raises based on other comparable cities’ salaries for leadership.
“All that did was brought it up to what other councilmen in the area (are) making,” Mickens said. “With the size of our city, we measured the size of cities throughout the state of Mississippi, and that was the average price for the cities in the state of Mississippi. And we hadn’t had one in 10 years.”
A 2023 report from the Stennis Institute of Government & Community Development at Mississippi State University shows average annual city hall salaries for a variety of city sizes across the state. For cities between 20,000 and 25,000 residents, it shows that Starkville paid its aldermen $21,320, Ridgeland paid its aldermen $23,897, Pascagoula paid its council members $15,966.07 and Vicksburg paid its aldermen $87,809.67.
In May, Mickens also broke a tie vote to increase the vice mayor’s daily stipend from $40 to $200 on days he fills in for the mayor. Mickens is the vice mayor.
On Wednesday morning, Mickens repeated to The Dispatch that he would have no issue if the proposed raises were removed from the FY 2025 budget, as long as city employees and the city’s surplus were taken care of.
Mickens said he only approved of two raises discussed on Monday — the raise for the mayor and a separate 23% increase for Fire Chief Duane Hughes, who is moving from $73,000 to $90,000. The council voted for Hughes’ raise in executive session.
Mickens said he believes the mayor should be paid more than other city officials, as a sign of respect for the seat.
“This man is running the whole city, and I think that’s only fair,” Mickens said. “He turned it down, and I talked to him about it and I said, ‘Mayor, you need to take this. You need to take this.’”
During the meeting, Gaskin said he would decline his raise. He told The Dispatch Tuesday that he did not suggest or support the larger proposed raises.
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 39 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.