A former Rockville council member who helped create the citizens group that recommends how much to pay city leaders is now saying the commission is overstepping its bounds and recommending outrageous salary increases.
The criticisms, leveled by Jim Marrinan, who was in office from 1989 to 1999, come as Rockville’s current mayor and council consider a report by the compensation commission that calls for the mayor’s payment to soar from $25,000 to an eventual $45,000 in fiscal 2010 and from $20,000 to an eventual $40,000 for council members.
Those increases are unprecedented in the Montgomery County seat, which six years ago was paying Rockville leaders under $10,000 apiece annually for their work.
“They just seem very excessive,” said Marrinan, who was compensated $7,000 at the start of his term and just $1,000 more a decade later. “I find it hard to buy into the rationale that you need to pay these individuals more in order to retain and attract new candidates.”
During his time on the council, Marrinan held down a full-time job, which he said was completely feasible given that council members and the mayor serve in part-time, policymaking positions.
Current Mayor Larry Giammo, though, who has said he will not run for re-election, said he doesn’t foresee a way that the person running the city could keep a 40-hour-a-week job as well as succeed as mayor.
“I average about 20 to 25 hours a week [working as mayor], but it’s not consistent from week to week. … It would be impossible for me to fulfill the demands of being mayor if I had a full-time job besides that,” he told The Examiner Monday.
Marrinan, who helped start the compensation commission, said when the arrangement was formulated, it seemed like a great way to involve taxpayers and regularly re-evaluate payments made to top officials from an outside perspective.
In hindsight, however, he said he thinks it was “naive” to think that the system couldn’t be abused.
