Council to weigh raise in pay Increase seen as way to make municipal service more attractive

BANGOR – The City Council’s strategic issues committee next week will reconsider a measure to increase council members’ annual pay from $400 to $2,000 with an additional $500 for the council chairperson.

On Monday, the committee decided to revisit the idea of a pay raise, the first since 1951 if voters approve it in November.

While the increase has been generally well-received by the council, the committee wanted to refine the proposal – as well as consider a pay raise for school committee members – next week before deciding whether to hold a public hearing on the matter on Aug. 27.

Mayor John Rohman said he would likely support putting the pay raise before voters in order to make a council run more attractive to those who might not have the financial means to take extended time from work to serve on the nine-member panel.

“My concern is that we limit the number of folks that are willing to run when it affects them in their pocketbook,” Rohman said. “It has a tendency to allow the possibility of a more elitist kind of council and that’s not in anybody’s best interest.”

Although the city charter allows the council to increase its members’ salaries, the politically sensitive board is instead likely to put the matter before voters, who don’t often take kindly to politicians’ raising their own pay.

Despite general support for the measure in the council, some members have expressed reservations about the panel itself putting the politically dicey matter on the ballot. Instead, some have said the measure should be brought before voters only if a citizen-led referendum drive could gather enough signatures to place the matter on the ballot.

A council-initiated drive in 1995 to increase the pay to $1,500 failed at the polls 60 percent to 40 percent.

This time, it was a three-member citizens panel – not the council – that began the effort to increase the council’s pay, which last was raised in 1951 from nothing to $400.

In its March 1999 findings, the citizens panel found that Bangor’s $400 salary was far below that of councilors in Maine’s two largest cities, Portland and Lewiston, with the average pay in those cities being $2,526, with an added $400 for the mayor.

Bangor also rates well below neighboring municipalities in terms of annual council pay, with councilors in both Orono and Brewer being paid $1,000, with the council chairperson receiving $1,200.

Any pay raise would not go into effect for three years to ensure that councilors voting on the issue will not benefit in their current terms.

For the charter amendment to pass, the November election must draw 30 percent of the total votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, and a simple majority must approve the measure.