On 09/15/2021 the Appleton Common Council voted 10-3 to increase the Alderperson salary from $6,221 per year to $6,750 per year effective April of 2023.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) who had chaired the Human Resources and Information Technology Committee meeting from which this recommendation emerged, thanked the HRIT committee members. She said the discussion centered on weighing the fact that the job of an alderperson is not a full-time or even part-time job with the desire to make the pay be something that encouraged more people to join the Common Council and work for the city in that capacity. She thought they came to a nice in-between after much discussion and encouraged her colleagues to vote for it.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) who is the regular chairperson of the committee and had participated remotely during the committee meeting echoed Alderperson Hartzheim’s sentiments on the issue. She pointed out that the last alderperson salary increase was voted on in 2019 and only went into effect in 2021. That increase had only be 1.5%. This current increase, if approved, approved would result in an 8.5% increase effective in 2023. But, when everything was averaged out it came out to be a smallish cost of living raise. She supported it and urged her colleagues to support it also.
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) was opposed to the increase, and although he was not the only one who voted against it, he was the only one opposing it who spoke and explained his thoughts on the matter. “I guess I just want to go on record in saying in my mind this is, you know, the position is not meant to be one that draws people based on the money. I think raising the salary for this position may actually, you know, start to draw the wrong people to this job. I think it’s public service, and nothing about what we do here is convenient. It’s not meant to be necessarily. But we’re not limiting people from running for public office by keeping the salary low.
“I know we are talking about small adjustments here, but we have so many things in our budget every year that we deal with that get so much less scrutiny than this, that has much bigger impact that I think if people that want to serve in this role will find ways to make the sacrifices to do this work. They’ll serve willingly and gladly, and I think there are other issues we need to be looking at besides salary that prevents people from wanting to do this job, and I think we can be addressing some of those things as a group beyond just the salary.
“I recognize that we’re voting on our salary here for the future, but I think timing of when we do this is also an important consideration and the signal that it sends to our community. I think things like if the city staff isn’t getting a raise we shouldn’t be, and we shouldn’t be getting bigger raises to ourselves than what the city staff gives. And I think we need to keep in mind the current situation that we’re in here–the budget picture that we’re looking at both for next year and probably for a few years beyond. And I think–I’m gonna be voting no on the salary increase and I encourage my colleagues to do the same. Thank you.”
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) said, “Alderperson Doran said that this is not a job that people take based on the money, but the truth is there are really good people who are not taking this job because of the money. You can’t afford childcare to come to a meeting. You need to leave work, you need to take time off of work, if you’re not someone who’s retired or has a flexible position. But really what this boils down to is there’s been 7 very small raises in the salary for an alderperson since I was in high school, and I think that that’s ridiculous. I think that the committee did a lot of really good work, and I think that we should follow their lead. Thank you.”
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) said, “I said this at committee, and I’ll say it again right now. I think that the intentions behind a low aldermanic pay are to keep intentions pure so that people aren’t attracted to the money, but over the years–especially in the past decade or more–that has become a tool of gatekeeping rather than a test of integrity. My colleague said that the money is not supposed to draw people to the job and might draw the wrong people. I think we really need to be asking ourselves who is being blocked from this job? If the right people are coming and they can’t get in, how do we fix that? And the aldermanic salary for someone who has a full-time job, for someone who has kids, for someone who is low income or even low to moderate income, they would really represent a lot of people in our community. They deserve a seat at this table, yet it is literally impossible for them to access the resources that they would need either to miss work or to make up the financial shortfall from the sacrifices that they would have to make.
“So, as my colleague said, people will find ways to make sacrifices. People can only sacrifice so much, and I think that with the stagnation of the aldermanic salary we have simply been asking too many sacrifices of people and this is something that–it’s a problem that has been for a long time needing corrected. I’m very, very proud of the great work and discussion that the HRIT committee did on this issue. I think that we–you know, we really don’t have the capacity to bring things into better alignment, so I think this is a really awesome step in the right direction and hopefully something that all of my colleagues will feel proud about. Thank you.”
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) noted that, “by the grace of God Sheri and Denise agreed on something. I will be supporting it.” He said the work of an alderperson could be very time consuming, and he actually quit one of his two jobs so that he had more time to give to his work as a Council member. He thought the alderperson salary “should counterbalance the second job if you want to work two jobs to have a certain income. But I think that over time we can figure out where we can continue to make…this job more available to the general public that can’t seem to get in.”
Alderperson Fenton said she made her arguments at the committee meeting but did want to point out that the proposed $529 increase in the annual salary equated to $20.35 a paycheck or about $10.17 a week. She didn’t think that was too princely a sum.
Alderperson Hartzheim said that the committee had hoped to put in a small, automatic cost of living adjustment increase, but, per the City Attorney’s Office that was something State law precluded them from doing. “But in that vein I had been speaking with Alderperson Alfheim about following COLA which is something that we all know if the Social Security cost of living adjustment, and that’s something that most people–most Americans are comfortable with. If you follow Social Security, you know they’re not getting–they’re not getting a huge raise every year. It’s just something to help them along every single year to increase. So, I took a look at the Social Security website and just looked at the City of Appleton since 2003 our total increase was 13.8% in aldermanic salaries. By contrast, Social Security which we know, they don’t make a lot of money–people on a fixed income on Social Security since 2003 have gotten a raise of 36.8%. So, in the broader picture of things we’re not overpaying our alderman, and I think that this is a nice–it’s a place in between giving a giant raise which we all know we can’t afford and shouldn’t do, and trying to get us somewhere where it’s palatable.”
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) who also served on the HRIT committee, thought the committee did their work on this item. “I came from the vein initially in the conversation that this is public service. I don’t think the pay is meant to be attractive. I stand by that. At the same time, listening to my fellow committee people, I understand that it is difficult–understanding the committee schedules that we have–for anyone who holds a normal 9-5 job to be able to take off to be a full-fledged alder. It costs money, whether it be daycare or lost wages, it matters. If our goal is to have a Council that represents our community, it can’t just be people that have flexibility in their calendar or people that are retired. It has to be a mixture. And with that in mind we have to make sure that we make it so they can at least break even. I would assume that most alders in their elections are gonna spend 5% of their salary on just getting elected–at least. So I don’t think this is outrageous. I think that we should be very easily–it should be very easy to explain a rational cost of living theoretical concept. I do not want to overpay alders in the future whether it be me or anybody else, but I think that we have to keep up and give people the opportunity to participate so our Council continues to be a diverse cross section of who we are as a community, and it is not just business owners and retirees. There are other people at hand. I hope that you support this resolution.”
There was no further discussion and the salary increase passed 10-3 with Alderpersons William Siebers (District 1), Joe Martin (District 4), and Chad Doran opposing. Alderperson Matt Reed (District 8 ) and Michael Smith (District 10) were not present at the meeting.
[I can’t say I have strong feelings one way or the other on this particular salary increase. A modest cost of living increase is not unreasonable and I do think Alderperson Hartzheim’s point that the salary has only increased by 13.8% since 2003 as compared to the 36.8% increase Social Security recipients have seen is well made.
At the same time, I am doubtful that increasing the salary will attract people who are any better or more worthy than those who currently serve. Council members in both Minneapolis and Chicago have salaries in the $100,000 range and one would be hard pressed to describe those cities as well managed.
In some respects, I felt this conversation spoke directly to me and my circumstances as someone who is lower income with children and a job and personal circumstances that absolutely do prevent me from seeking to serve on the Common Council for the reasons various alderpersons expressed. However, I do not feel it is my right to serve on the Appleton Common Council or that the city has any responsibility to me to make it easier for me or someone in my circumstances to run for public office. Nor do I feel that I’m somehow less than or that the people on the Common Council are more privileged than I am because they can serve while I cannot. Instead, as someone who wanted to be more involved in the Appleton community and in what was going on locally in city government, I did an assessment of the options available to me and found a way to be involved that worked with my circumstances.
Serving on the Common Council is not the only way for people to get involved and there are a multitude of options that may work with people’s schedules and lives better than serving as Council members right now but are worthwhile and impactful. In my case, I started a Facebook page and website devoted to making local government meetings more accessible to people. A few options I can think of off the top of my head for other people would be serving as a community member on a committee, volunteering as a poll-worker, or simply making an effort to be more aware of what’s going on in city government and giving regular feedback to alderpersons on issues that arise. It doesn’t matter if Council members are predominantly self-employed or retirees if the community as a whole is communicating with them and letting them know what each of us think about issues.
The opportunity is very much available to everyone to have a lifetime of public service and involvement in various capacities across the decades. Serving as an alderperson need only be one of the things a person does, and I don’t think it should be viewed as the be all and end all of public service and local involvement.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=884420&GUID=190AFC4D-5884-4ACF-B011-89788EDB42BD
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