Following a closed-door discussion and unanimous vote Tuesday evening by the Capital Area Transit System, the base salary for CATS CEO Bob Mirabito was increased by 19%—from $147,000 to $175,000—as part of a new three-year contract.
The raise means Mirabito’s salary is now higher than those of Police Chief Carl Dabadie ($160,000), Visit Baton Rouge CEO Paul Arrigo ($163,000) and BREC Superintendent Carolyn McKnight ($157,000), who are among the highest-paid public officials in Baton Rouge. Prior to the raise, Mirabito was already earning more than Mayor Kip Holden, who is paid $146,000 annually.
While Metro Councilwoman C. Denise Marcelle urged the CATS board prior to Tuesday’s meeting to reject Mirabito’s contract—calling the raise “appalling”—CATS Board President Donna Collins-Lewis, who also serves on the Metro Council, defended the salary hike, saying it puts CATS in line with other top executive salaries at peer transit agencies.
A review of salaries of transit system heads in peer cities including Charlotte, Little Rock, Memphis and Austin by Daily Report shows Mirabito’s new salary is indeed in the range of what his peers in those cities are paid.
A day following the CATS vote on Mirabito’s contract, the Metro Council took up a contentious personnel issue of its own: the hiring of its next parish attorney. Metro Councilwoman Ronnie Edwards told Daily Report following the hiring of Lea Anne Batson that she’s disappointed with the council’s appointment because she feels the council did not adequately vet the three finalists for the job. But Metro Councilman Chandler Loupe defended the search process and the vote.
“I don’t feel like we as a public body fully vetted this. It felt like it was just a formality and something that was already decided, perhaps behind the scenes,” Edwards said.
Loupe dismissed any notion that Batson—who has been with the parish attorney’s office for 27 years and served as interim parish attorney ever since the council fired former Parish Attorney Mary Roper last fall—had the job secured before the vote was taken.
“That’s clearly not true,” he said. “Anybody that thought that Lea Anne Batson already had enough votes to be selected last night did not understand the process.
Here’s a rundown of some of the other top stories making headlines in Daily Report this week:
- Though Louisiana’s four leading candidates for governor differed in style and specifics, they agreed in substance more often than not on how to address the state’s most pressing problems during a gubernatorial forum hosted by the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana in Baton Rouge this week.
- The delegation of 145 business and community leaders from south Louisiana brought home a bevy of big ideas from its Super Region Canvas trip to Arizona’s Sun Corridor that began Sunday and concluded Tuesday.
- As announced during the Super Region Canvas trip, BASIS, one of the most academically demanding charter programs in the nation, wants to bring five schools to Louisiana, with the first campus tentatively set to open in 2017.
- As the Louisiana Legislature begins to debate bills that would reform, cut or end the state’s incentive program for film production, an internal industry dispute is pitting Baton Rouge-area stakeholders against their more numerous New Orleans counterparts.
- A partnership between a Natchitoches-based hotel management company and a New York investor has acquired the high-rise Marriott hotel off Interstate-10 near College Drive for $21.8 million and plans to begin an extensive, year-long renovation of the 300-room hotel some time this fall.
—Steve Sanoski
