So far the steps taken by the Kaua‘i County Salary Commission apparently designed to help professionalize the county administration have stayed beneath the radar. Neither the commission nor the council held a public hearing, and no county agency has publicized
So far the steps taken by the Kaua‘i County Salary Commission apparently designed to help professionalize the county administration have stayed beneath the radar. Neither the commission nor the council held a public hearing, and no county agency has publicized the facts.
In its most dramatic move the commission raised administrative salaries by 25 percent across the board effective July 1, 2007, followed by 7 percent increases on Jan. 1, 2008, Jan. 1, 2009, and Jan. 1, 2010. To illustrate, the mayor’s salary has risen from $80,000 to $l00,000 and will rise to $122,504 in 2010. By that date most department head salaries will have risen from $75,000 to $114,848.
Appointing authorities (mayor, council, department heads and several boards/commissions) can set the salary of an appointee below the established figure. The commission has expressed its firm intention to foster administrative accountability and performance-based pay by requiring appointers to justify salary raises. The fact that the commission now has permanent status based on staggered terms should enhance its chances to follow through on that intention.
The council can reject the commission’s salary decisions in whole or in part, but cannot modify them. In this case the council chose not to act. One reason may be that council salaries will also rise following the next election, to figures considerably higher than those first projected by the commission. The salary of the chairman will rise from $39,500 to $59,699 on Jan. 1, 2009, and to $63,879 on Jan. 1, 2010. The salaries of councilmembers will rise from $35,100 to $53,066, then to $56,781. The time discrepancy between administrative and council raises is the result of a charter provision forbidding raises for council incumbents.
The Salary Commission has stressed the importance of a salary structure and a system of accountability designed to attract and retain highly qualified members of the administration. However, the commission’s ability to exert a positive influence is limited by the county’s political structure, and if no further steps are taken the commission’s actions can turn out to be hardly more than a plan for dramatic salary increases.
In fact, the most crucial step in professionalizing the administration lies outside the Salary Commission’s jurisdiction. The next logical step is to place a professionally trained county manager at the top of the administration and leave the mayor free to attend to ceremonial duties. Only the voters can take that step by means of a charter amendment requiring professional credentials for the head of the administration and making the manager accountable to the council while remaining free of council interference in day-to-day operations — a system of governance widely used across the country.
At present the two top administrative positions are political offices for which no professional credentials are required. In the nature of the case, no such requirements can be imposed on the mayor as long as he remains executive head and supervisor of the administration. Similarly, the mayor has a free hand in appointing the administrative assistant (the second-highest salaried official at $96,250, rising to $117,911 in 2010) — an office originally created primarily for the purpose of having someone to fill in for the mayor in his absence but which has been turned into an unofficial “county manager” position that lacks charter-mandated professional credentials and statutory authority.
It will be up to the Charter Commission to follow through on the work of its predecessor by placing a county manager proposal on the ballot in 2008. In my opinion, that will happen only if members of the public insist on it. (The mayor has made his opposition clear after scheduling the commission’s first meeting for Sept. 24, almost a year after it should have started work.) If you believe, as I do, that the voters have a right to vote on a county manager proposal in 2008, please submit oral or written testimony to the commission when it begins work.
• Horace Stoessel is an occasional contributor to the Forum and a resident of Kapa‘a.
