Panel suggests 8% raise for city officials

The Honolulu Salary Commission is proposing 8 percent raises be given to Mayor Kirk Caldwell, City Council members and most department heads starting July 1.

The preliminary list of pay increases was approved by the commission at its meeting Tuesday. A final plan, however, will await a commission hearing slated for 1:30 p.m. April 29 at the City Council committee room at Honolulu Hale. The commission is also accepting written testimony until the meeting.

The commission approved 4 percent pay raises for the same city officials a year ago.

But City Council members, citing the need for fiscal austerity, rejected the raises for the current year. Council members have declined any raises for themselves in recent years and have not had any increases since July 1, 2008, according to figures distributed to commission members by the city Department of Human Resources.

The City Charter allows the Council to approve or reject each salary recommendation but not change any of the final numbers recommended by the commission.

A three-person subcommittee of the commission had initially recommended that most city officials receive 4 percent hikes in the coming year, which would be similar to the raises being given to most of the city’s approximately 10,000 employees under collective bargaining agreements reached in the past year.

But commission member Lee Donohue said Wednesday that he and colleagues were told by the city that the pay raises of city leaders have lagged behind those of other employees and that 8 percent raises were more appropriate.

"Otherwise, every year we’re going to be chasing,"said Donohue, former police chief. "The differentials would increase even more at 4 percent."

The commission voted 7-0 Wednesday to go out to public hearing with the 8 percent proposal.

The police chief and his deputies were recommended to receive slightly higher increases of 8.4 percent. That’s because an 8 percent raise for the deputy police chiefs would result in them making less than some assistant chiefs, their subordinates, whose raises are tied to collective bargaining salaries, Donohue said.

The salary plan calls for the newly appointed medical examiner, Dr. Christopher Happy, currently the city’s highest-paid employee with an annual salary of $250,008, to get only a 2 percent increase. The chief medical examiner’s spot had been vacant since October 2009 due to the lack of board-certified pathologists in the U.S. coupled with the city’s comparatively low salary for the position.

The commission had been steadily raising the pay for the vacant position, including a 25 percent increase last year. Happy was appointed in July and began in November.

City Council leaders say they don’t want to rush to judgment on the commission’s plan.

Council Chairman Ernie Martin said he wants to hear what the public has to say about the recommendations.

"The salary commissioners devote many hours of their time to formulating what they feel is a fair salary adjustment for the city’s elected and appointed officials,"Martin said in a statement. "While we appreciate the effort, it is uncertain at this time if an increase of 8 percent is appropriate in light of the slow economic recovery."

Council Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said she and her colleagues may be reluctant to accept raises for the coming year given the continuing budget concerns faced by the city.

"I don’t know what we’ll do,"she said. "We’re already scrambling for money."

The Council is in the midst of deliberating on the operating and capital improvement budgets for fiscal year 2015, which begins July 1. Caldwell in March submitted a $2.15 billion operating budget.

The Council’s latest draft, which got the second of three necessary approvals Wednesday, stands at about $13 million less than the mayor’s plan.

Caldwell spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke, in a statement, said Thursday that the mayor is also debating whether he will support the salaryplan.

The cost of the increases for department heads, excluding the police and fire chiefs, would amount to less than $300,000, he said.

"The action by the Salary Commission recognizes that if our executive agency administrators do not receive catch-up raises, those civil service managers whose salaries are tied to collective bargaining contracts that do include catch-up raises will make more money than their bosses,"Broder Van Dyke said. "While (Caldwell)feels the raises are well deserved and fair, he won’t make a final decision on the raises until the budget process ends."

Caldwell did not accept his 4 percent raise for the current year and has also continued to take a 5 percent voluntary reduction that was instituted in fiscal 2013, Broder Van Dyke said. Factoring those reductions, the mayor is currently receiving about $129,607 annually.

Caldwell appointees, meanwhile, did not accept pay increases until Jan. 1, six months after the fiscal year began, at the mayor’s urging.

"So they received a 2.2 percent increase rather than 4 percent," Broder Van Dyke said.