Spearfish Mayor Dana Boke has managed to win a temporary pay raise. Since city administrator Joe Neeb resigned in February, someone has had to make all the decisions Neeb used to make. Mayor Boke quite logically has stepped into that gap. The Spearfish City Council thus decided that, until they hire a new city administrator, they’ll pay Mayor Boke an hourly wage equal to the difference between her part-time mayor’s salary and the full-time city administrator position:
When determining if and how to compensate her for those duties, Human Resources Director Jodi Friedel approached the council during committee meetings for their input. The calculation for the wage was determined during a Legal, Finance, and Public Safety Committee meeting.
This committee, made up of Councilmen Dan Hodgs, Larry Klarenbeek, and John Lee, recommended the following calculation to come to the determination of wage proposed: The calculation involved taking the starting wage for the city administrator position, a grade 27, step 1, $49.13 per hour, times 2,080 hours, the measurement of 40 hours worked over 52 weeks of one year, which equals $102,190.40, and subtracting Boke’s annual mayoral salary of $22,759.67, which equals $79,430.73, divided by 2,080 hours, which equals $38.19 per hour. The committee then matched that number to a grade and step on the city’s current scale, rounding up to the grade 24, step 4, $38.77 per hour. This is the same grade used for the city’s public works administrator, chief of police, and finance officer positions [Kaija Swisher, “Interim Wage for Mayor Providing Spearfish City Administrative Duties Approved 4–2,” Black Hills Pioneer, 2017.03.22].
Now whoever does the work of city administrator, interim or permanent, should get paid a fair wage, so the salary itself isn’t ill-spent.
But hiring the mayor for a city job seems problematic. It fouls one of the basic checks and balances in Spearfish’s city ordinances, Section 2-120, which empowers the mayor to “remove any official whenever he shall be of the opinion that the interest of the city demands a removal.” Right now, if the interim city administrator is acting against the interest of the city, Spearfish can’t count on the mayor to remove the city administrator, because the mayor is the city administrator.
Spearfish’s city administrator position appears to differ from the city manager position envisioned in state law. However, state law says cities can’t appoint anyone “elected to membership on the governing body” of the city as their city manager until at least a year has passed after that person leaves elected city office. Even if that statute on city manager qualifications (SDCL 9-10-10) doesn’t apply to city administrators, the logic behind it would suggest that paying the mayor to be interim city administrator isn’t the most prudent choice.
Spearfish doesn’t have the city administrator position up on its job board yet. Approving the job description and posting the job is on Monday’s agenda. Polish your résumés, public admin experts! Spearfish will want to fill this position and relieve their mayor of this conflictual position as soon as possible.
Would that all towns in South Dakota had a mayor that was just like young Ms. Boke.
Grudz comments on the only qualification wingnuts look for in candidates. Grudz always comments on the only qualification wingnuts look for in candidates. Grudz ONLY comments on the only qualification wingnuts look for in candidates. Grudz ceaselessly comments on the only qualifications wingnuts look for in candidates.
Did I miss any?
…because Grudz wants the conversation to go his way and ignore the policy questions presented.
Grudz, does hiring a sitting mayor to serve as interim city manager, complete with additional hourly salary, pose a conflict of interest?
Your analysis is spot on. That’s why the council’s decision was not unanimous. This ‘temporary’ arrangement is fraught with conflicts ranging from business owners-in-government to personal issues among the department heads. The city needs professional management of the caliber and type Mr. Neeb provided for years. Otherwise, the city may spiral to bad-ole good-ole good boy or girl ‘buddy’ management and quickly. The city is a decade behind where it should be in areas because of nimby-isms and inabilities to make decisions, and an unfortunate result of local jurisdictional vote. Before Spearfish embarked on this dubious mayor-administer arrangement it should have changed its form of city governance. In the future it may be wise changing duties so the city manager works for the council and not the mayor, so that the council hears and rules on real or imaginary issues.
John, do have a bead on why Neeb stepped down? Better job elsewhere? And can you decipher whether Spearfish’s “city administrator” is a “city manager” under state law?
http://www.sdmunicipalleague.org/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC=%7B33E9C767-2065-4201-8F6B-DBDA8625A402%7D&DE=%7B8ED171C6-7486-4770-B412-C99E60303C64%7D
Cory,
This might help clear up some confusion on City Administrator vs. City Manager
Thanks, Amanda!
SDML lists six towns employing a city manager: Aberdeen, Brookings, Canton, Sturgis, Vermillion, and Yankton. That list thus indicates Spearfish’s city administrator is not a city manager. Is the difference in name and statute only?
No. As someone who worked for a municipality as a City Administrator who is now employed as a City Manager, the differences are pretty great. As an example, an administrator does not have hiring/firing capabilities. All of those decisions are made through the Council/Commission.The day to day operations of the City are managed by the Manager. Council Members/Commissioners do not serve as “department heads” with oversight over a specific department. In my community, our Mayor is selected by his/her fellow commissioners. In the other forms, the mayor is elected by the community. There is value in both forms of government, for sure. As an employee, I prefer the City Manager form. I find it easier to implement the strategies/direction/mission of the commission. I, and the finance officer, answer directly to the Commission. The other employees answer to the City Manager. It’s much like a CEO/Board of Directors relationship.
Ol’ grudz believes hiring a sitting mayor to serve as interim city manager, complete with additional hourly salary, does not pose a conflict of interest any differently than any President/CEO title you might commonly find. Especially when the President/CEO is somebody as qualified as Ms. Boke.
(1) Grudz, good public policy pronouncements do not depend on the characteristics of specific individuals. Your perception of the unique personal qualities of the Spearfish mayor cannot inform an analysis of conflict of interest.
(2) The analogy to corporate president/CEO is imperfect: a corporate president isn’t elected by the public. Mingling an elected office with a hired position with the city seems far more problematic than your pres/CEO example. Suppose a city council hired its mayor to be parks director, or chief garbage collector. Would that not raise eyebrows in most towns?
Amanda, thank you for that helpful explanation. I try to make sense of the city admin/city manager positions by comparing to school superintendents. A school superintendent seems to be in between city administrator and city manager in power: a superintendent doesn’t have the hiring/firing power of a city manager, but the superintendent does supervise all departments in the district directly rather than that power belonging to individual board members.
I was surprised not to find city administrator duties specifically outlined in the Spearfish city ordinances. Amanda, were your city admin duties laid out in your previous town’s ordinances?
Mr. H, here in South Dakota we do not always have the luxury of having a seemingly infinite number of people to do all these jobs. We have a long history of people seeing things needing to be done and stepping up and doing them. This is the hard work ethic we South Dakotans share, and while it may go against the Socialist credo or make the unions (who are dying) angry or not be libbie enough for a few on the dole, I simply state the facts. Sometimes things need doing, and the best people step forward and do them. Young Ms. Boke has demonstrated the brains and desire and gumption to get things done. That makes her a candidate for mayor-of-the-year to many. Spearfish loves her. I hope they have billboards up featuring her.
Cory, I really don’t remember. I know there was an ordinance allowing for the position of City Administrator, but don’t remember if the day to day expectations were written in there. Before I started in that community, the Mayor, elected at large, served as the interim City Administrator as well. Of course, it was a much smaller community than Spearfish, so the compensation was much different. To be clear, I am not sharing an opinion one way or the other on what Spearfish is doing, I only wanted to share some information on City Manager vs. City Administrator because it’s something I actually know something about! :)