Council Approves Increase in City Manager's Salary

The University City City Council Monday approved a 2 percent cost of living increase in the salary of City Manager Lehman Walker.

All other city employees received the cost of living adjustment (COLA) increase when the city passed the 2013-14 budget earlier this month. 

Councilman Terry Crow questioned why the increase for Walker wasn't included with all other city employees. 

"Just two weeks later after we passed the budget we are coming back to do a COLA increase for city manager. Why wasn’t this in the budget? It came up during the budget study session," Crow said. "We determined that the cost of living increases didn't include the city manager."

Paulette Carr also said she thought it should have been in the budget.

"This isn't reflective of merit," she said. "So it seems to me that it should have been in the budget. We were added things in until the eleventh hour — why wasn't this considered?"

Councilman Stephen Kraft said it wasn't clear whether the city manager's position was included when the city granted across the board cost of living increases and the city didn't have a clear legal opinion on that until Monday.

Walker noted the budget factored in COLA increases for all employees, so the approval of an increase to the city manager's salary wouldn't change the budget. If the council chose not to grant the COLA increase to Walker, the budget would have been amended down.

The increase was approved unanimously.