City council members or municipal council members form part of the local governing body. The city council members are responsible for making decisions affecting the city. They pass various bills. They oversee the proper implementation of those bills and also conduct polls. The number of city council members can vary from 5 to 51. Let us know more detail about ‘Salaries For City Council Member’.
Salaries For City Council Member
Typically, a council member can earn somewhere between $16000per per year to around $91000 per year. However, the average salary is around $37000 per year. When surveyed, 20% of the council members present in the mid bracket range earn around $20000 per year. Typically, the salary of a council member depends on their experience and the responsibilities they are given. Let’s read Salaries For City Council Member.
The municipal council can be divided into a few brackets. Their responsibilities and functions are described below:
Strong mayor-council
The mayor is the chief governing authority in a strong mayor-council. However, he is not a part of the city council. He appoints departmental heads who in turn oversee various functions of the council. Although the departmental heads are elected, the mayor has complete control over them. They report directly to the mayor. Apart from the departmental head, the strong mayor-council houses very few elected members. Members are elected by the mayor as and when he feels the need. The existing council members assist him in decision-making. However, a lot of times, the mayor does not consult his council members before appointing a member. Put in simple words, the mayor has powers of veto. The council members have only legislative powers. The strong mayor is not responsible for the supervision of daily functions. He specializes in the decision-making of matters of higher importance. One of those is budget allocation. In budget allocation, the mayor works on two things. They are the final budget and budget implementation. Various other tasks are also present. Initial budget, reviewing of budget, and approval of the budget, falls under the responsibilities of the council members. The mayor, however, has veto power over all these decisions. To override the mayor’s decision, a council majority is required. That majority can be 2/3 of the entire committee or ¾ of the entire committee. The council member can overrule a mayor’s veto like this in case of matters of the ordinance as well. Any authoritative action is called an ordinance and the mayor is the sole person responsible for its implementation.
The director of operations earns $85000 per year. The city manager earns $113000 per year. The departmental heads earn around $89000 per year. The mayor of a strong mayor-council earns the highest. He gets as high as $150000 in some states.
Weak mayor-council
The starkest difference between a weak mayor-council and a strong mayor-council is that the weak mayor has no veto power. The mayor possesses much less power. He does not have any authority outside his council. He lacks the power to appoint officials on his own. Another difference is that the weak mayor is selected by votes within the council. The strong mayor, on the other hand, is always elected based on the votes of citizens. The mayor does not have complete authority over the council. The council members can effectively prevent him from having control over matters if they want. Even the weak mayor-council has limited powers. There can be other organizations as well that can exercise laws and bills. The council members along with the mayor are responsible for appointing officials. Like this, the whole of the council has authoritative powers. Acts of the budget which are handled by the entire committee including the mayor are: – initial budget, final budget, budget review, approval of the budget, and implementation of the budget. Even in matters of authoritative exercises, the whole council takes the decisions. All the policies and laws are laid down by the council as a whole. Enforcement of those laws is also overseen by them.
The salary of a weak mayor is more or less close to that of a strong mayor.
Council- manager
The council manager can be made up of 6 members at the least and 9 members at the most. The mayor forms part of this setup as well. The mayor might sometimes be elected from within the council. However, the mayor’s role is very superficial. He has powers only in his name. The council appoints external, trained managers as their CEO (Chief executive officer). Essentially the government functions jointly. They exercise the powers of both the council members and the elected professional manager. The CEO is responsible for executing tasks that the council members are responsible to oversee. The council can fire the CEO at any time they feel suit. This prevents the CEO from taking greedy and harsh decisions. The CEO is responsible for chalking out the budget and also for the appointment of new members. The council has the power to appoint a city clerk as well. In the case of budget, the CEO oversees the initial budget. The initial budget is brought to him by the departments responsible. The CEO then chalks up the final budget and reports it to the council. The council then works to see if the budget is a good fit for the city’s needs. If and when they approve the budget, the CEO is then tasked with implementing it.
The CEO of a council-manager type of government earns around $106000 on average. The whole range of salaries is from $97823 per year to $120574 per year.
Commission
The minimum number of members is 3 and the maximum number of members is 7 for this type of government. The way this body works is that they elect a chairman. The chairman has to be already a part of the council before being elected. The whole of the government is responsible for appointing officials. The officials of a commission are called commissioners. Each of them has various skills and expertise. According to their skills, they are appointed head of certain departments. The preliminary budget, final budget, and its implementation are all handled by the whole commission.
The average salary of a city commissioner is around $54000. The range of salaries varies from $43000 to $70500.
Conclusion
Depending on what type of government is active in a city, the salary of each official varies. Although differences across cities can be found, they are not very stark. City council members have more or less a uniform salary throughout the states.
