Backers of raise for Dallas council and mayor say job's gotten tougher

To find what Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings calls one of the most important ballot measures of the last decade, skip the hotly contested races for governor and lieutenant governor.

Keep going past the state Supreme Court candidates and those for the Texas Legislature. Jump over the battles for district attorney and county judge.

And then, second to last on the ballot for Dallas voters, there it is: Proposition 8, a proposal to increase City Council members’ annual pay to $60,000 from $37,500; and the mayor’s salary to $80,000 from $60,000.

As simple as it is divisive, Proposition 8 continues a decades-long debate over what it means to be a City Council member in one of the biggest U.S. cities with the council-manager form of government.

Some say the job is part time, given the city manager’s broad powers. Others say it’s full time, given the demands of 1.2 million city residents.

Some say the current low pay emphasizes public service. Others counter that it excludes those who can’t afford to serve.

“It’s a question of getting what you paid for,” said the Rev. Gerald Britt, one of the group of community leaders supporting the proposal. “The fact is that you stand a chance of getting a better qualified candidate if you pay them what they deserve.”

The pitch to increase Dallas council members’ pay grew out of a once-a-decade review of the city charter by an appointed commission. The panel’s recommendation was then approved by the City Council. Ultimately, Dallas voters must decide on any proposed charter change.

Alan Walne was one of those on the charter review panel who opposed the increase. Walne, a former City Council member, didn’t deny that serving on the council is time-consuming and requires “tremendous sacrifice.” But he summed up the sentiments of many by saying the job is about public service, not making money.

Walne noted that the last time voters approved a raise for council members, in 2001, supporters of the measure promised that it would produce more quality candidates. He’s not sure that’s necessary.

“How many times do we have to do that until we have a better pool?” he asked.

Supporters of the measure that’s on Tuesday’s ballot have formed a political action committee, Vote Yes for Prop 8.

The group, which expects to spend more than $100,000, has sent out mailers, run radio ads and dropped off door hangers. Rawlings has been the campaign’s public face. (The mayor has yet to say whether he’ll run for re-election, but the proposition is written so that he wouldn’t get the raise even if voters approved it and he won a second term.)

In a radio ad that compares voting for Proposition 8 to passage of the landmark U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, Rawlings says: “We have the chance right here in Dallas to open the doors of opportunity even further.”

In many ways, backers of the proposal are running against an invisible adversary. No organized opposition has developed. Even some council members who voted against the raise aren’t going out of their way to campaign against it.

Instead, what stands in the way of a hefty raise for the City Council is the public’s general, if amorphous, sense that politicians just don’t deserve more money.

Since 1968 — when Dallas council members’ pay was boosted to $50 a meeting from $20 — there have been 10 ballot measures to provide further increases. Only the one in 2001, establishing the current salary, was approved by voters.

“The initial knee-jerk reaction to increasing any politician’s pay is typically negative,” said Eddie Reeves, a political consultant working on the Proposition 8 campaign. That sentiment, he said, is reflected in polling on the current proposal.

When asked a generic question about raising council pay, a slight majority of respondents were against the idea, he said. So proponents have focused on raising awareness about why they feel an increase is necessary.

For one thing, they say, the Dallas mayor and council are underpaid compared with their counterparts in many other big cities with council-manager setups. In Phoenix, for example, the mayor makes $88,000 a year, and council members make $61,500. (Dallas, however, isn’t at the bottom — not by a long shot. In San Antonio, council members are still paid $20 a meeting.)

Supporters also stress that being a Dallas City Council member has become a full-time job.

Under the council-manager system, council members are theoretically part-time workers. But as Dallas has grown, so too have the expectations of what council members should do, what hours they should put in and how accessible they should be to constituents.

“We are the lowest-paid, most called-upon elected officials in the city,” council member Dwaine Caraway said.

At The Dallas Morning News’ request, council member Philip Kingston shared his calendar from a recent week.

It was a week in which he spent two days out of town. And still, he logged more than 30 hours of scheduled city work. His calendar shows wall-to-wall meetings — with the council and its committees, with city staff members and with neighborhood groups.

That doesn’t count the hours that he and others spend reading and answering emails, taking telephone calls or poring over agendas.

For Kingston, a lawyer, it’s possible to meet those demands on top of his regular work. The same is true for Rawlings, a former corporate CEO, and for others who are wealthy, retired or married to someone who has a substantial income.

But for many other Dallas residents, it’s simply impossible to juggle a day job with council responsibilities — especially when the City Hall job only brings in $37,500 a year.

“I’m fortunate that I’m one of those people who can support myself in another way,” Kingston said. “But the door is closed to many other people.”

For two current council members, Adam Medrano and Carolyn Davis, the hypothetical debate over full time vs. part time isn’t even a question. Their city paycheck is their sole source of income.

Neither complained about that — after all, they chose to run — but both said they’ve had to make sacrifices to live on that salary. Davis noted that she’s “never lived a lavish lifestyle,” while Medrano said that he’s had to “seriously, seriously budget everything.”

Even though Davis wouldn’t benefit from the raise — her tenure ends next year because of term limits — she’s encouraging voters to support Proposition 8.

“It is a full-time job,” she said. “You think you know that when you take on the position. But you don’t really know that until you get there.”

Follow Tom Benning on Twitter at @tombenning.

AT A GLANCE: Past Dallas council pay proposals

Dallas voters haven’t looked favorably on efforts to boost the pay of the mayor and City Council. Here’s a history of ballot propositions on the question.

1930: Increase to $20 a meeting, not to exceed $1,040 per year. PASSED, 68 percent to 32 percent.

1968: Increase to $50 a meeting. PASSED, 58 percent to 42 percent.

1973: Increase to $100 a meeting for council, $150 a meeting for mayor. REJECTED, 69 percent to 31 percent.

1976: Increase to $125 per meeting. REJECTED, 67 percent to 33 percent.

1983: Increase to $500 a month, plus $100 a meeting. REJECTED, 63 percent to 37 percent.

1989: Increase to $1,650 a month for council, $2,500 a month for mayor. REJECTED, 51 percent to 49 percent,

1990: Increase to $2,500 a month for council, $2,917 a month for mayor. REJECTED, 57 percent to 43 percent.

1993: Increase to $1,583.34 a month for council, $1,875 a month for mayor pro tem and deputy mayor pro tem, $2,083.34 a month for mayor. REJECTED, 64 percent to 36 percent.

1997: Increase to $212.20 a meeting. REJECTED, 56 percent to 44 percent.

1997: Count one town hall meeting a year in council members’ per-meeting pay. REJECTED, 52 percent to 48 percent.

2001: Increase to $37,500 a year for council, $60,000 for mayor. APPROVED, 54 percent to 46 percent.

2005: Increase mayor’s salary to $120,000 as part of “stronger mayor” proposal. REJECTED, 62 percent to 38 percent.

WHAT OTHER CITIES PAY

Here’s a look at what mayors and City Council members make in other cities with council-manager forms of government: