Brittany Kelley
KYLE — The Kyle Compensation Committee discussed changes to city council compensation for the first time in four years at its April 17 meeting.
According to the presentation by assistant city manager Jesse Elizondo, the mayor receives $1,300 a month, or $15,600 annually, while council members get $1,000 a month, or $12,000 annually. This is a fixed compensation, said Elizondo, but it is affected by attendance. So, if a council member missed one out of two meetings for the month, they lose out of 50% of their earnings. Though, this is not applicable to their other compensation, which includes a $500 a month, or $6,000 annually, expense stipend.
Separate from “personnel services,” as referred to by the presentation, that are budgeted each year are the “contractual services.” This includes $5,500 for travel and $300 for each of the following categories: mileage reimbursement, memberships and dues, subscription and books and community and public relations sponsorship.
After committee member Howard Connell noted that some of the expenses, such as subscription and books, were unapproved expenses in the previous credit card policy, Elizondo stated that he “would like to remind the committee that the charge of the committee is to evaluate what is being paid and not how it’s being used specifically,” but that at a future meeting, members can look at what is specifically allowed to be purchased.
Regarding the potential recommendations made to council, committee member Michael McDonald asked what the scenario would look like if the committee recommended that the council positions be volunteer, meaning they do not get paid. Council would then be determining whether or not they get paid by taking or denying the Compensation Committee recommendation.
“What council does with that is completely up to them,” said Elizondo.
He then suggested sending out a survey to council asking how long it takes for them to complete tasks and how much time they spend serving each week.
When discussing the salary and compensation, city attorney Aimee Alcorn-Reed stated that “there are a million ways to cut this up [whether salary or stipend]. The goal of council is to get an idea for how much, but also how you want to split it. So, do you want to split it between a salary and a stipend or do you want to just create a salary that you think would cover all of that.”
Committee member Jake Webb emphasized that the intent of the money spent by council is what should matter.
“We should just make it a salary because we’re setting the council members up for failure by not having any rules for the stipend. There's too much unclearness where people are setting up assumptions of how they spend it, when there's no guidelines to how they're supposed to,” said committee member Juliana Orgish. “So, we’re creating more of an issue by separating it, if there’s no real difference.
The stipend is also causing confusion for staff, shared director of Finance Perwez Moheet. He stated that, sometimes, expenses were being reimbursed and that the stipend was becoming an income, instead.
Because of this, he recommended that the committee clearly distinguish the following: stipend, salary and reimbursement: “You cannot have a stipend that is truly compensation, if you do not separate reimbursement. You can’t have both; you shouldn’t have both.”
The committee shared the opinion that council should be compensated, rather than converting the role to a volunteer position.
“It’s been four years since the last Compensation Committee met. I think we can all agree that within the last four years, the cost of everything has increased 30% or more. So, when it comes to discussing numbers, in my mind, I would automatically take the existing numbers up by 30%,” said Connell.
In response, McDonald noted that there are many people in Kyle that have not received 30% increases over the years and that it is not realistic to expect this for council compensation. He also stated that other cities bigger than Kyle have lower compensation.
Connell emphasized that he does not care about where their compensation lies in comparison to other cities because he’s not familiar with them, but he knows that there are a lot of extra meetings and time that the council puts in, so he wants them to be compensated fairly: “It has no bearing on monkey see, monkey do.”
He also suggested a tiered model tied to tenure, which would increase each year that the council member is serving on the dais. Alcorn-Reed noted that this could be difficult to plan for in the budget. Additionally, Webb stated that this could be confusing for the residents, as well, since it was unclear for the committee itself.
Ultimately, the committee agreed on a potential cost of living increase. Moheet stated that it cannot be a set number for the increase, but instead tied to the consumer price index (CPI), so there is no conflict of interest by council approving their own raise.
He then introduced the idea of a fixed amount. It would be the council member’s job to budget accordingly, without reimbursement.
Chair Diane Hervol was concerned because of the lack of transparency that would occur with this. Though, Connell stated that there was a lack of transparency, anyway.
“If they wanna take their stipend and have a mini town hall every other month and keep in contact with their constituents and all that, it’s going to show up at the voting booth. If you have someone who comes along and just sticks it in their pocket and you never hear from them, that’s going to show up at the voting booth. Also, I want to give them their freedom and I want to make it simple for us,” said Connell.
Committee member Melissa Spence suggested a reimbursement up to $500, rather than a stipend, as this would still require council members to budget well and encourage transparency through receipts.
“I think, historically, if you look back at every council member, there are some that have been some that have been really involved and treated it like a full-time job and some that have been less involved. Our job is to put a number on the chair; it’s the voters’ job to decide who fills that chair, if they like the amount of time they’re spending, if they think they’re working hard enough,” said Webb, rather than basing compensation on hours put in.
The consensus from the committee was to: remove the stipend and because of this, a potential increase to the salary; add a yearly cost of living increase through CPI; and potentially create a separate fixed pot for travel and other expenses each year, with required documentation. The money that is not used in the separate account would be returned to the city.
The next meeting on May 11 will consist of contractual services, commodities and reimbursement, as well as include the anonymous survey results of how many hours council logs each week.
