Mayor Kip Holden sent a memo to the Metro Council today asking its members to freeze his annual salary beginning in 2013. “In light of the current financial status of the city-parish and the downturn in the economy affecting our residents, I respectfully ask that you not increase my salary,” Holden says in the memo. Mayor Pro Tem Mike Walker, however, says the mayor’s salary schedule, which calls for a 3% pay increase annually, should be left alone.
Holden is making $127,672 this year. He’s set to make $131,502 in 2012, and is asking the council to forgo his 3% increase from there on. The council set the mayor’s salary schedule in 2000, and it took effect in Bobby Simpson’s first year in office a year later. The schedule calls for the mayor to start at $106,923, and top out at $148,006 if he or she serves the maximum 12 years in office. “I think that’s fair compensation for whoever the mayor-president is, and I think we should keep it that way,” says Walker, who is one of just two council members who were in office when the salary schedule was created. “When we set this up, we did it to make sure our mayor’s salary was in line with the rest of the similar-sized cities across the country. It was fair then and it’s fair now, so my vote is going to be to continue the increase.”
Holden confirmed he is running for re-election in 2012. Should he be unseated, his request for a pay freeze would be moot, as his successor would start at the $106,923 base salary. The finance and executive committee will take up the issue today. —Steve Sanoski
