Newton Commission Asks If City Councilors Should Be Paid More

NEWTON, MA — Should Newton's elected officials - from School Committee members to City Councilors to the mayor - be paid more? That's a question that City Council President Marc Laredo is asking a "Blue Ribbon" Commission to examine. And now the commission is asking for your input.

The commission, which is made up of 13 people and assembled in January, is tasked with making recommendations for possible future changes to salaries and benefits of elected officials to Laredo by this summer, with the hope of getting something voted on before elections.

The City Council last looked at the compensation for its elected officials in 2005. At that time, a Blue Ribbon Commission recommended raising the salaries for all elected officials and providing a way to ensure future increases. The City Council ended up approving a salary increase for the mayor (who actually didn't take it for at least two years) but did not give themselves an increase.

Newton's mayor gets a salary of $125,000 a year.

Newton's 24 city councilors have earned the same annual salary since 1997 - a stipend of $9,750. School committee members each receive an annual stipend of $4,875.

And that's lower than the average in other cities.

In neighboring Waltham, for example, where the mayor earned $141,320.24 last year, the city council president earned $18,402 and the other 14 councilors earned $17,902. School Committee members received $11,101.

In the Town of Brookline, however, the chairman of the Select Board gets a "thank you" stipend of $4,500. The other four members get $3,500. School Committee members are volunteer positions and have no stipend.

Some argue it's more complicated than it looks.

Former Newton School Committee member Matt Hills sat on the last Blue Ribbon commission as vice chair person of that committee, which was split on whether to take into account health care benefits that year.

Whenever you're looking at how to compensate, you want to look at what other communities are paying, whether Newton needs to change the compensation in order to attract people to serve and what the consequences of spending more money might look like, said Hills.

"Also, understand if we raise the school committee stipend by $125 or more to total $5,000, then the years on the school committee will count toward the retirement system — if they serve at least 10 years in total. And Newton will be on the hook for a lot of retirement benefits that they're not on the hook for now," said Hills who added there are no retirement benefits for anyone making under $5,000 in the city.

"So the important thing is counting all compensation and determining whether the current system provides enough incentive to run. And at least on the School Committee side there are plenty of people running particularly for open seats."

But then there's the question of whether more or different people would run if a stipend enabled them.

Some argue that low or no stipends could actually be a barrier to ensuring a diversity of members on the boards.

"I worry a lot about the structural barrier, and so I believe there should be a needs-based stipend," said Brookline School Committee Member Susan Wolf Ditkoff. She added a more market-rate based stipend of roughly $15 an hour for 10 hours per week could actually be meaningful and help with childcare and offered on a sliding scale.

Then there is the philosophical issue: Should people be paid for this public service or not. Is serving on the city council or school committee a job? Or is it community service?

The commission is asking anyone with input to weigh in at a public comment session April 9, at 7 p.m. at Newton City Hall in room 203. The commission is also asking residents fill out an On-line Questionnaire. You can also make recommendations for possible future changes to their salaries and benefits by emailing BRC@newtonma.gov

According to the city clerk's office the commission is chaired by Claudia Dumond-Henderson, the chief human resources officer for the Boston Globe who formerly served as senior vice president, head of human resources at Steward Healthcare, and James Simons, a compensation specialist who currently works as an independent consultant and previously was the director of compensation for ModusLink Global Solutions, a multinational e-commerce company.

The other members of the commission are:

• Karen Carroll Bennett, the director of the Teaching and Learning Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a member of the Day Middle School Council;
• Sharon Chen, a human resources manager at Dunkin Brands, Inc. and the co-president of the Newton Cantonese School;
• Doug Cornelius, the chief compliance officer of a financial services firm and a member of the Newton Historical Commission;
• Sue Flicop, who works at Boston College TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center and is the president of the League of Women Voters of Newton;
• Carolyn Gabbay, the vice president of legal affairs and general counsel at Mount Auburn Cambridge Independent Practice Association, Inc. who for many years was a partner at the law firm of Nixon Peabody, LLP where she practiced health care law;
• Timothy Moran, an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts where he is the deputy chief of the Organized Crime and Gang Unit and director of the Civil Rights Enforcement Team;
• Greg Reibman, the president of the Newton-Needham Regional Chamber who previously was the editor-in-chief and publisher of the Newton Tab and 13 other weekly newspapers;
• Donald Siegel, a partner with the law firm of Segal Roitman, LLP where he represents unions and workers;
• Andrea Steenstrup, a controller for a number of local life science start-up companies who has been active in the Newton public schools;
• John Stewart, a former Alderman at-Large from Ward 4 who served on the Board of Aldermen for ten years and was the director of education at the Kennedy Library and Museum; and
• Kathy Sun, a strategy and operations business analyst at Deloitte Consulting.

If you want to look back at past commission agendas and audio click HERE.