If There is a Right Way to Raise City Manager Pay, This Isn’t It
San Antonio District 2 City Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez was recently on the Express-News’ “Puro Politics” podcast when the subject turned to the city charter commission. Regarding their consideration of changing the city manager pay structure, he said “there is a fix inherently baked-in.”
He was referring to the fact that the salary is tied to 10X that of the lowest-paid city employee. Raise that, and the CM’s pay automatically increases. Many citizens echoed that sentiment to the commission in recent weeks. They call it pay equity.
While that sounds ideal, it would likely have a negative impact on small businesses and taxpayers.
Business owners have to compete for labor. Part of that is being a place where people want to work, as the councilman alluded to. But it’s not a stretch to say that a driving factor for many people when they go to work in the morning is what they’re being paid.
When the City bumps the pay of the lowest-paid worker, it puts pressure on mom & pops to keep up. They can’t simply wave a magic wand and decree a higher wage. They must be doing well to justify it. They must be satisfying customers and earning their business, and repeat business.
The city does not. It can rely on taxing citizens’ savings to hand out raises.
Faced with this, small businesses have a choice: raise prices or absorb the costs, or both. Either way, they are that much closer to closing their doors. One group that wouldn’t mind that is their larger competitors.
For a political class that likes to extol the virtues of small businesses, giving big business a leg up is a strange way to translate that into action. But even the bigger boys may not be immune here.
The councilman mentioned payroll “compression” as a concern while lifting up the bottom rung. “You would want to make way for” mid-level city employees “to receive better compensation” as well.
Those are your finance professionals, engineers, HR folks, software developers, etc. In its quest to be an “employer of choice,” the City lures these folks away from the private sector, where they help create much more value.
Unfortunately, the City doesn’t exist in a bubble. Its actions radiate outward into the community. The possibility of unintended consequences is rarely factored into decision-making. Slower growth, more government dependency, more crime, etc.
Is it any wonder we’re the ‘poorest big city’ in the country?
Corporate executives who can afford political influence with max campaign donations don’t have to sweat this. Special interests who benefit from government largesse are happy to go along. At the end of the day, it’s always the same person who gets stuck with the tab: the regular taxpayer.
Get ready, because with budget season upon us, that bill is coming due soon.