Opinion: Petition for full-time council pay in Fort Collins needs more signatures

The drive to establish full-time pay for Fort Collins City Council members has hit a speed bump.

Petitions submitted Nov. 7 to the City Clerk’s Office came up about 500 valid signatures short of the 6,058 needed to advance the proposal. Organizers of the drive have until Dec. 7 to “cure” the petitions with sufficient signatures.

That means more work in not much time for petitioners from the group Fort Collins Full-Time Council, which gathered more than 9,000 signatures over three months for the original submittal.

If enough valid signatures are turned in, the City Council would have time to place a proposed amendment to the City Charter on the April 2 municipal ballot. Changes to the charter, in this case council compensation, must be approved by voters.

If approved, the amendment would offer council members and the mayor salaries equal to the household Area Median Income, or AMI, based on five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

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That’s $57,831 a year, according to a city memo to council. Council members currently are paid $815 per month, or $9,780 a year. The mayor is paid $1,224 per month, or $14,688 annually.

Council pay is adjusted annually based on inflation. AMI is also estimated every year.

Adding benefits would bring a council member’s total compensation to $78,438 if the job ends up considered a classified position. If it’s a contractual position, it would be $74,397.

The city’s cost for full-time council pay and benefits would be about $550,000 a year. City officials anticipate increased office expenses as well as and probably adding at least one administrative staff position to support council members, according to a memo.

Council members do work hard, and they do make important decisions. Keeping up with matters coming before council as well as day-to-day concerns raised by constituents takes a lot of time.

Balancing the council workload with a job that pays the bills and a family or social life is indeed challenging. As a result, folks who are retired or self-employed and/or financially secure end up serving on council.

Supporters of the amendment say paying a full-time wage for full-time council work would attract a greater diversity of candidates. Young people might be interested in seeking election if they thought it made financial sense.

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Council members might be more responsive to constituents if the role were treated as a full-time job, supporters say. They could research topics on their own and not be so reliant on information from staff.

Maybe so. However, no council member I’ve ever known subjected themselves to the rigors of an election campaign and then took on the job because of money: Their interest has been in giving back to the community and looking out for the best interests of the city.

Under the amendment, council members could decline the salary. They would not be precluded from having other employment.

A tab of $550,000 a year might seem like small potatoes for an organization with a $500 million annual budget. But it would be taxpayer money that could go toward providing city services.

Would the trade-off be worth it to the city? That will be up to voters decide if the petitioners make their deadline.

Kevin Duggan is a Coloradoan columnist. Follow him on Twitter, @coloradoan_dugg, and on Facebook at Coloradoan Kevin Duggan.