River Bend Times

The Camanche City Council discussed potentially raising their compensation rates during a meeting held on March 7.

Sitting Councilmembers currently earn $600 per year or approximately $25 per meeting as they typically hold two meetings per month and there is no additional pay for special meetings held outside of the usual schedule. Councilman Dave Bowman suggested that the compensation rate should be raised due to the large amount of work that goes into the position, especially outside of meetings. Bowman proposed that the Council should raise the rates for the next group of sitting Councilmembers, who will be sworn in after the next election.

"First, I ran for office, and I didn't know we were getting paid," Bowman said. "But the second thing about this, for those who've never done this, is that I had no idea what I was getting into until I got into this seat. So the whopping $600 a year we get paid to do this, I think doesn't cover it. I'm not asking for a pay raise for myself, because by law, I can't. But whoever ends up in this seat next, I think maybe should be better compensated for what they do, because there's a lot of work involved in this job and there's a lot more than just showing up for a meeting twice a month. There's a lot more to it."

According to City Administrator Andrew Kida, councilmember compensation rates had last been changed in 1995, with the mayor's being adjusted in 2000. Kida also explained that council members attended approximately 30 meetings each year between regular, special and committee meetings. He then reminded the Council that any pay change would only impact them if they were reelected to their current seats.

Kida offered multiple compensation plans from neighboring communities. Some of them had a higher flat rate than Camanche, others paid between $30 and $50 per meeting attended, and others had different rates for regular and special meetings. The Council decided to tentatively support a $50-per-meeting pay rate for council members and increase the mayor's compensation from $3,600 to $4,000 per year. They also decided to not deduct $50 if a council member missed a regularly scheduled meeting as that most often happens due to other community obligations. The Council then asked City staff to draft the proposal and bring it back for adoption.