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10/17/2007: "Four Councilmen Testify Before Salary Commission"

( Pete Rose addresses the SJC Salary Commission prior to start of meeting)

The San Juan County Salary Commission (SC) met on Wednesday to determine if “any adjustments to Council Member salaries set by the Commission in June, 2006” were warranted. All of the council members submitted written material on the subject to the SC, and four of the six also asked to be placed on the agenda.

Only three of the six council members -Lichter, Myhr, and Ranker- conveyed to the commission members a direct request for an increase in their compensation, or implied they were seriously underpaid; to which one of the SC members noted that only those who are currently receiving full time pay based on salaries set prior to the Charter, were asking for future additional money.

While Councilmen Knapp, Rosenfeld and Peterson had submitted statements that indicated they felt the lesser compensation they received was appropriate to the job, of the three, only Knapp showed up to testify and answer questions from the SC.



The testimony from Lichter, Myhr and Ranker was telling, and the commission members were polite and respectful as the three stated they spend as much as 60 or more hours a week on work directly related to the job of being a County Council member. During the testimony Ranker stated he had included travel on the ferry as part of that time spent, and Lichter included contacts and conversations outside of the office in his total of hours.

Some of the members expressed carefully worded opinions that may have expressing some doubt that some of the time the council members included in their sums were appropriate.

During the deliberations period, one of the commissioners said “Any council members can put in a claim they work 100 hours a week,” and asked “who decides what ‘duties’ are?”.

While Myhr and Lichter left shortly after giving their comments, Ranker stayed for the entire meeting, and engaged in a continuing dialog with the commission about the need for performing lobbying at the state and federal level, and how much time and expense was involved, and that the commission needed to start to address how they would compensate the council for taking the time to lobby.

This brought forth a comment from one of the SC members that the job description for the council included lobbying as part of the duties of a council member. Ranker expressed surprise there was a job description, and said “I would like to have a copy of it”. This resulted in the staff bringing out a clearly stated Council job description that the the SC members had copies of.

County Councilman Rich Peterson’s submitted statement noted that while “the responsibility is extremely significant and council members should be compensated commensurately”, he also noted “This is a very part-time job with the requirement for only two meetings per week for only three weeks out of each month, assuming members perform only the minimally required tasks.” Councilman Knapp said he had found that 20 hours a week was adequate to do the job.

The SC members were unwilling to make any changes at the Wednesday meeting, and of those who expressed and opinion -with one exception- they indicated they may not be willing to interfere in the upcoming reduction of Lichter and Ranker’s $67,428.00 pay to the $31,938.00 that is paid to Knapp, Myhr, Peterson and Rosenfeld. The salaries were set under the Charter provision that setup a Salary Commission.

The $31,938.00 amount is based on the SC investigation of comparable salary ranges in other counties, contrasted against the duties the County Council is expected to perform under the new County Administrator form of government. While the members have to pay taxes on the amount, they do not supply office space, phone charges, staffing or any of the other costs of the office.

In his letter, Councilman Peterson summed up his philosophy on Council pay by stating “Because of budget pressures the Council should set an example by being willing to serve for minimal compensation and "free up" funds for other priorities.”

Due to the requests for additional money, the SC may take up the matter again in their December meeting.