Why the Salt Lake City Council Should Reject a New Salary Raise

In a letter to the Salt Lake City Council, Jan Hemming, urges the members to reconsider a pay raise for themselves. She claims the pay raise would put the council members greatly above the scale of comparable cities.

Jan Hemming

September 10, 2024

I strongly urge you to reject a new, higher salary raise for yourselves. I have witnessed first-hand your conscientious and devoted attention to the city’s business. Your service is appreciated and acknowledged. However, a new salary raise — on top of the one you just received weeks ago to $52,941 — is egregious. If approved, your salary would jump from $42,000 at the end of June, 2024 to $74,000.

Please consider the following:

The proposed increase comes as inflation and cost of living are causing hardships for your fellow Salt Lake residents and constituents.
With no checks and balances, you are exploiting your own authority to give yourself a raise. The optics look terrible.

Matched against other cities of comparable size (SLC, population 209,593) with comparable features (airport, major university, major health care system, arts, corporate headquarters, etc.) means that SLC Council salaries would be double or triple what council colleagues in these compatible cities are making:

Boise $28,048. Capitol City (population 236,600)

Des Moines $35,000. Capitol City (population 210,381)
Tallahassee $45,000.* Capitol City pending public ballot vote in November 2024 (Population 202,221)
Baton Rouge $37,049. Capitol City (population 219,573)
The Salt Lake City Council position is part-time.
According to ZipRecruiter (July, 2024), the average full time salary in Salt Lake City is $61,766.

The City Council is supported by a staff of 39 plus an Executive Director, and each Council member is assigned a full-time constituent liaison. This is a veritable “army.” Name another city in Utah that — percentage wise — has that level of support. This staff assists you with your work and costs the city $6.2 million. Just 6 years ago the council department budget was $3.7 million. And what was the City Council salary that same year? $35,925.

The basis for your original raise is flawed. It’s tied to the mayor’s salary which automatically triggers your raise. Are there other municipalities that have this provision? It deserves closer public scrutiny. The mayor’s new $212,000 salary (a $44,000 raise) is higher than what Utah Governor Spencer Cox makes at $165,600. Does the mayor of Salt Lake City have more responsibility than the governor of the State of Utah?

You already receive annual cost of living increases.
By what criteria is the raise being requested? Salt Lake City schools are closing. Families are leaving. The majority of Salt Lake City roads are in poor condition. Our parks are not well maintained. Police department morale is low. There have been some glaring RDA “fumbles.”

Arguing on a local podcast that the current council salary is too low or too demanding timewise for some people triggers a “class warfare” narrative. Tell that to the countless number of Salt Lake and Utah wage earners or retail owners who gave their all and still lost their jobs, lost their businesses, lost their homes, lost employees, and everything else during COVID, while thousands of Salt Lake City employees were sheltered by the city’s safe government harbor during COVID.

Unless you have contrary evidence, not one Salt Lake City employee was laid off because of downsizing during COVID. Many worked from home. Additionally, the federal government dumped tens of millions of ARPA money into city government coffers. Do you understand the perception? During the toughest economic time in America, your salary and the budget of this city ballooned. And now you want more.

The facts don’t support your argument that a Council seat is primarily accessible to privileged, wealthy people. The current city council is the most diverse in the city’s history – from many different aspects including work experience, ethnicity, and LGBTQ standards. Council salary has not prevented you or others from running and winning a council seat.

Every job has emergencies, overtime stresses, and unexpected demands. The city has faced several major issues recently requiring special attention and a great deal of time. Using the last 6 months as a yardstick for a salary increase may not be the best lens through which to see this issue clearly.

If your life has changed and you’re in a different financial place than you were before you became a Council member, then maybe this job isn’t for you anymore. It seems inappropriate that the go-to bailout solution should be hiking your Salt Lake City Council salary.

What do other people do when faced with the same dilemma? Some have 2 or 3 jobs; some decide to move elsewhere; some leave the job they’re in or cut back on commitments; others re-educate themselves, change professions or jobs, get family assistance or something else.

Thus far, a good case for a Council salary increase of this magnitude has not been made. What is your rationale? In the spirit of fairness and transparency, the people of Salt Lake deserve to know.

Respectfully,

Janet (Jan) Hemming

Salt Lake resident

Feature Image created using AI.

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To understand what Alta really looked like, you don’t begin with legend. You begin with its trash — and this time, that happened almost by accident.

Alta Ski Area was installing underground water reservoirs to support snowmaking. Because the project sits on Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest land, an archaeologist was required to monitor the excavation. No one expected the trench to produce much.

But, It did.

Artifacts began surfacing almost immediately. Enough that the Forest Service contacted the Utah State Historic Preservation Office for help. Lexi Little, who coordinates the Utah Cultural Site Stewardship Program, helped mobilize nearly 30 volunteers to assist with what quickly became a focused two-week excavation.

Winter deadlines were approaching. The pipes for the reservoirs had to go in the ground. There wasn’t time for a slow, extended dig.

“It was two weeks of digging in the dirt and helping figure out exactly what we were looking at,” Little said.

Most of the people screening soil weren’t professional archaeologists. They were trained stewards from around Utah — part of a statewide volunteer network that now approaches 500 people. They poured dirt through shaker screens, scanning for fragments that could piece together a town long buried.

“Archaeology is human trash,” Little explained. “Archaeologists are very into trash.”

Alta had left plenty behind.

https://youtu.be/hzIHzx3OGoo?si=dKcl2CEz-t6FZzYw

Victorian-style ceramics appeared first — the kind typically used in hotels. Medicine bottles followed. Ink bottles. Hand-blown glass. A porcelain doll’s foot surfaced from the soil, a small detail that shifted the mental image of the town. Families were here. Children were here. This wasn’t only a camp of miners.

The bottles helped establish time. Manufacturing details — whether glass was hand-blown or mold-made, whether a maker’s mark appeared on the base — allowed archaeologists to date many of the artifacts to the 1870s through the 1890s, when Alta was booming as a silver mining town.

“That gives you that range of dates for when Alta was really booming,” Little said.

One reusable soda bottle clearly stamped “Salt Lake City” connected the canyon to the valley economy below.

Then something unusual rolled out of a dirt pile.

A corked bottle. Intact. Liquid still inside.

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