Will the City Council allow Mayor Andy Schor to get a raise?

THURSDAY, March 24 — Lansing Mayor Andy Schor and City Clerk Chris Swope are set to collectively receive about $18,000 in salary increases over the next two years under a resolution that was approved this afternoon by the city’s Elected Officers Compensation Commission.

The seven-member commission met today to finalize salary increases for the two elected offices — ultimately landing on a 3% increase for the mayor and a 5% bump for the clerk that are slated to retroactively take effect from January and climb again at the same rate beginning next year.

Here’s what the commission decided:

• Schor was paid $139,600 last year. The resolution calls for a 3% increase this year — boosting his salary by $4,200 to  $143,800.
• Swope was paid about $94,700 last year. The resolution calls for a 5% increase, boosting his annual paycheck by $4,700 to  $99,400.
• Both would receive a bonus of about $1,000 to make them whole from the last three months. And in 2023, their salaries would jump to about $148,100 and $104,400, respectively.  That's another  $4,300 for Schor and $5,000 for Swope.  Over two years,  that's $9,500 more for Schor and  $8,900 for Swope, including the $1,000 extra pay each.
• All eight members of the Lansing City Council will not receive any salary increases until at least 2024, when the commission meets again. That keeps the rate flat at $30,000 for President Adam Hussain, $27,300 for the Vice President Carol Wood and $26,400 each for the other six members. 

The Elected Officers Compensation Commission is required by the City Charter to biannually review and set salaries for the mayor, clerk and the  Council. The proposals become law unless three-fourths of the Council rejects them within 30 days.

The Council meeting on Monday (March 28) will mark the first of at least two opportunities that the Council will have to reject the pay raises. The next meeting in that window is set for April 25.

The commission has met six times since February as part of its legally required salary review — though rarely with all seven members present at once. Only five members showed up today: Chairwoman Liisa Speaker, Steve Young, Brian Huggler, Derek Melot and Holli Seabury. 

Prior concepts — largely driven by Melot — had called for boosting salaries for Schor and Swope by about $16,000 to account for decades of ignored inflation rates, as well as the potential of giving Swope an all-expense-paid city vehicle to cruise between city offices.

Today, the commission landed on a more modest increase for the mayor — mostly because none of the city’s unionized staff had seen an annual raise higher than 3% in the last 20 years. The general sentiment: It was unfair to give the mayor a raise higher than his frontline workers.

The commission was a bit more generous for Swope’s salary to help account for what it characterized as an  increased workload related to medical and recreational marijuana licensing operations. Speaker also emphasized that Swope was significantly underpaid compared to other city clerks in similarly sized cities,  including Ann Arbor, Dearborn, Grand Rapids, Rochester Hills and Royal Oak.

The commission’s initial enthusiasm to offer Swope more compensation in the form of a city vehicle, however, waned after Swope informed the commission that he was already entitled to mileage reimbursements but routinely forgot (or simply didn’t care) to fill out the paperwork.

Commissioners also decided against any raises for the Council,  mostly because its part-time members were already compensated more than elected leaders in several other Michigan cities. Hussain also told City Pulse last week that he was hesitant to support pay increases for the Council, a message that was relayed to the commission and factored into its final decision.

The last time the commission tinkered with salaries for the city’s elected officials was in 2019,  a process that then included 8% bumps across the board for the mayor, clerk and the Council. Before that, the Council also allowed 20% increases for elected officials to take effect in 2015.

Councilman Peter Spadafore also declared his opposition to any salary increases beyond 3% for any of the positions. The other six members did not respond to questions from City Pulse.

Click here for coverage of last week’s Elected Officers Compensation Commission meeting.