Is the Mayor of Jacksonville overpaid?

[JayBird]

In another thread about the upcoming 2015 elections, I commented on how I was shocked to see what Mayor Brown is paid. The City of Jacksonville pays the Mayor $173,900 while the Governor of Florida makes $132,000 annually. As comparison, this is an excerpt from South Florida mayors from last spring

Other salaries of note: Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler earns $35,000, Miami's Tomas Regalado is paid $97,000, Coral Gables Mayor Jim Cason gets $35,000, Doral Mayor Luigi Boria earns $62,000, Miami Beach's Matti Herrera Bower makes $10,000 and longtime Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis makes $48,000
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Salaries-of-South-Florida-Mayors-207205521.html

... Significantly less than Jacksonville. Is this justified? Mayor Brown has brought attention to downtown, he has worked to better the public education of Duval County. But he has also made many missteps in his first term.

[thelakelander]

Same article says Miami-Dade County's former mayor made $200k in base salary and Hialeah's makes $150k. Jax is essentially a county with over 800k residents. The largest city by population in the article is Miami, which has a little over 400k residents. I also believe Brown took a lot less than what Peyton made when he was in office. So, I guess overpaid, underpaid arguments can be presented, depending on a large range of factors.

[thelakelander]

From what I understand, Brown's salary is in the range of $139k due to the pay cut he took when entering the office. Where did you get the $174k number from?  Was that Peyton's old salary?

[JayBird]

^ even worse, Wikipedia. But you are correct, he does make less and as CityLife pointed out on the other thread it is justified as he runs the entire county.

[spuwho]

http://news.jacksonville.com/govtsalaries/index.php?action=search&county[]=2&year[]=2012

[CityLife]

Yea, as I said in the other thread, COJ has a strong mayor form of government where the Mayor runs the government.
Basically there are two options, mayor strong where the mayor is CEO and works full time, or council strong where the mayor is council president and a city manager runs the day to day operations. You have to take this into account when comparing mayoral salaries. That said, COJ does have a Chief Admin Officer (Karen Bowling), so I imagine the mayor delegates a lot of management duties to that position.

[CityLife]

Pretty much every other municipality locally operates on the strong council model with a city/county manager. Jax Beach pays $162k, Orange Park $112k, Clay County $176k, Green Cove $102k, St. John's County $170k, St. Augustine $132k, Atlantic Beach $132k.

[Tacachale]

The Mayor of Jax is one of the state's biggest jobs; most other mayor positions in FL are small potatoes in comparison. If anything the position is underpaid. If we keep lowballing our most important jobs were going to keep getting stuck with the lowball quality of leadership to which we're currently accustomed.

[strider]

The old adage often rings true:  You get what you pay for.  When the salary of the CEO of a major corporation like Jacksonville gets paid what many corporate middle management people get paid, where's the incentive to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to maybe get elected and get to be called Mayor?

If money is the only thing you want and you have the right talents, you go elsewhere.  How many actually run for office for only the"right" reasons?

For most, it is a stepping stone, it is a way to easier money (somebody often gets their money's worth out of politicians, just not always us tax payers) and what better way to feed one's ego.

All that begs the question: If Jacksonville decided to pony up a Million as the Mayor's salary, would anything really change? Or is the system so well rooted in place it would stay the same?

[Tacachale]

A million isn't reasonable by any standard. However, if we don't invest in compensation that matches the huge responsibilities of the position, a lot of qualified people will see the job as too much of a sacrifice. Again, if we put the state's most significant mayoral position on the level of cities with only 200k people (or 40k, like Coral Gables) we can expect a caliber of leadership that matches that level.

[urbaknight]

I know this isn't the focus of the thread. But you know, I have to get my shots in at every opportunity.

For the crappy job city council is doing, I don't think they deserve half of their pay!

[JayBird]

I know this isn't the focus of the thread. But you know, I have to get my shots in at every opportunity.

For the crappy job city council is doing, I don't think they deserve half of their pay!

+1

Is city council considered a full time job as well?

[urbaknight]

I think they're only part-time.

[Shine]

I think the pay issue is somewhat irrelevant.  If you are after a big paycheck, elected office is not the place to find it.  Consider even in the public sector, CEOs of independent authorities and college presidents earn nearly twice the amount of the Mayor's salary.  The bigger problem is the number of talented individuals who could run, win and lead effectively; but do not because of the level of personal sacrifice and diminished opportunity to earn more money in the private sector.   I don't think the Mayor job has been "fun" for the last 10 years -- hardest years will be ahead.

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."
- Henry David Thoreau

[fsquid]

the mayor of Charlotte is a part time position, I guess their ROI is pretty nice.