A natural question for Bangor voters next week as they contemplate an increase to the annual stipend for city councilors from the current $400 to $2,000 is whether the councilors are worth that much. It’s a natural question, but it’s not the right question because the stipend is not a reflection of value, like a salary. If it were, all council members for the last couple of decades would have had a very low sense of self-worth, and there’s no evidence of that.

The $400 stipend councilors now receive has been in effect for a half century, since 1951. An equivalent stipend today would be approximately $2,700. Various councilors and residents for the last decade have noted that Bangor councilors were the worst paid of any comparable city in Maine. The Maine Municipal Association reports that salaries for councils in 2000 were $4,843 for Portland; $2,700 in Lewiston; and $2,400 in Augusta. Current Bangor pay is comparable only with Presque Isle, a city one-third Bangor’s population. Yet a 1995 ballot question to increase the stipend in Bangor was soundly rejected by voters.

The stipend is not a measure of worth but a means to allow residents to afford to serve. Running for office and putting in time at council functions costs money. Not only does the council needlessly have term limits, its low stipend adds another barrier to participating in a city that needs as many people as possible working together to solve the really large problems of economic vitality, career opportunity for the region’s young adults and service-center pressures, among many others. And while there is a healthy number of residents running for council this year, none of them under the current stipend can count on even breaking even on campaigning and the incidental costs of serving on the council’s various committees – and that means a limited number of people can afford to run.

Voters may be surprised to find that a fairly simple question – whether to increase the stipend to $2,000, plus an additional $500 for the council chairman – had to take considerable space on their ballots. The question there is hundreds of words long and includes strikeouts and underlines showing how Article II, section 2 of the city’s charter would look with the changes. A city ordinance, which the council should change, requires the entire section printed on the ballot, but for voters, the place to find the actual question is down low, under the “statement of purpose.” Despite the excess verbiage, voters should vote to keep the council open to all residents by voting yes to this question.