Large pay increases likely for top-level officials in Rockville

That level of increase is unprecedented in the Montgomery County seat, where leaders created the commission 13 years ago to more formally study whether salary and work level correspond.

According to City Clerk Claire Funkhouser, the last time commission members convened to talk pay scale, they recommended increasing the mayoral salary from $16,421 to $25,750 and the council salary from $13,200 to $20,600. Those recommended amounts stuck and went into effect late in 2005.

Now the Compensation Commission is suggesting much larger increases.

For Rockville’s mayor, it would mean making $35,000 next year, $40,000 the year after and eventually $45,000 by 2010.

Council members would pull in $30,000 next year, $35,000 the year after and, by 2010, $40,000.

Commission Chairwoman Virginia Onley, who was appointed to the group at the time of its inception, acknowledged the payment increases are very significant, but said they were justified based on the time the public officials put into their duties and the high cost of living in Montgomery County.

She said that this will be the first time the commission is recommending a stepladder-style tactic, in which raises occur each year for three consecutive years.

“We’re talking about big increases, so we want the salary to go up gradually,” Onley said of the rationale.

Technically, the mayor and council positions are considered neither part-time nor full-time, but the people that fill those slots are allowed to take on other jobs, which they frequently do.

Onley said her group will submit its official recommendation by the end of the month. Then, if approved by the current mayor and council, the changes will take effect once the new administration comes in following the November 2007 election.

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