LIHU‘E — A resolution set to go before County Council Wednesday would increase the maximum salaries of the mayor, department leadership, and council members by 15%.
This creates a situation in which some councilmembers may be making a call on their own paychecks.
Though Council Chair Arryl Kaneshiro, and Council Vice Chair Mason Chock are terming out this year, most sitting councilmembers appear poised to retain their seats. Councilmembers Luke Evslin, Bernard Carvalho and KipuKai Kuali‘i placed in the top four of primary voting, while council members Felicia Cowden and Billy DeCosta finished in seventh and eighth place, respectively.
Kaua‘i council members currently make $67,956 and would make $78,672 in 2024 if the resolution passed. (The council chair makes $76,452 and would make $88,502.)
These salaries are the lowest in the state for council members — Maui’s council makes $76,475, with $82,225 for the chair, the Hawai‘i Island council makes $70,008 ($77,016 for the chair), and the Honolulu councils make $68,904 ($76,928 for the chair).
If the raises are approved, and if other counties do not implement similar increases, Kaua‘i would become the highest paid council statewide. Most councilmembers currently supplement their salaries with secondary income.
At the Wednesday meeting, the council will have the option to either accept the resolution, reject it completely, or reject it in part and offer a modification.
When a similar resolution came before the council in 2019, the council voted down their own raises while agreeing to increases for the mayor and department leadership.
Councilmember Billy DeCosta said Friday he did not support a wage increase for council members, but he did support raising salaries for county employees.
“You know how difficult it is to get qualified people and compete with the private sector when our pay scales are behind,” said DeCosta.
Salary Inversions
The resolution was approved by the mayor-appointed Salary Commission in a 5-0 vote this July, which laid out a rationale for the proposed raises in a memo to the council.
The memo notes similar raises from collective bargaining units, rising costs of living and the concept of “salary inversion,” in which department heads are sometimes paid less than high ranking subordinates.
While the department heads are generally among the highest paid county employees, their salaries are sometimes outpaced by subordinates because, despite being on call 24/7, they are not eligible for overtime pay and are subject to sporadic wage increases rather than regular raises.
In one example included in the Salary Commission memo, a Kaua‘i Police sergeant took home more than $60,000 in overtime pay last year, boosting their salary above Police Chief Todd Raybuck’s by nearly $40,000.
This can make it more difficult to recruit for leadership roles internally.
“The leadership positions of all departments largely earn less than the third in line of management and others,” said Cowden. “This pattern almost forces the county to recruit outside of the experienced team to hire directors.”
Cowden said that with if the raises went into effect, salary inversion would remain nearly the same because of comparable raises in the union contracts, but would not get more extreme.
She gave support for raises to leadership, noting that, unlike the majority of county staff, these positions are “unprotected by a union,” but said that she did not need a raise personally.
The raises would be enacted in three 5% increments — in January 2023, July 2023, and July 2024.
The maximum salaries are not necessarily the salaries officials receive. The respective appointing authority may set the salary of appointees lower than the maximum — and elected officers may voluntarily accept a salary lower than the maximum or forego a salary entirely.
Mayor Derek Kawakami’s salary would increase from $142,062 to $164,454 in July 2024.
He is currently the state’s lowest paid mayor, trailing behind Honolulu’s Rick Blangiardi ($186,432), the Hawai‘i Island’s Mitchell Roth ($162,582) and Maui County’s Michael Victorino ($159,578). The raise would push him ahead of both Roth and Victorino.
Raybuck and recently appointed Fire Chief Michael Gibson’s respective salaries will both be upped from $137,022 to $158,640.
Other positions up for raises include Managing Director Michael Dahilig, leadership in the Finance Department, Human Resources, Planning, Economic Development, Liquor Control, Parks & Recreation, Housing/Human Concerns and Boards and Commissions, Department of Water, and the Office of the County Clerk and top county attorneys and engineers.
County council will convene at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at the County Building on 4396 Rice Street.
My opinion is no raises till the economy gets straightened out. Council members have other jobs to make money. Being a council member should be a honor serving their community.
The mayor can wait till the economy gets better.
Right now (per GI headlines) locals are deciding between gas and food. No to raises.
NO raises until our economy &those that depend on surviving one Kauai..are give some leeway to reduce the GET tax burden on EVERYTHING! It is insulting to those who are scraping by to see how much our “elected” officials are making& this report exposes just that. I realize that the pay raises are going to be done incrementally at 5% per yr. First that needs to be reduced by half! 7% total over 3 yrs.We need to reduce the tax burden on all Kauaians.
I will say that our County Council & Mayor have done a good job of steering our Island through some very rough times…but giving pay raises on the backs of our community
when most are still trying to recover form the pandemic..is a very short sided approach.
Please reconsider the pay raises or at least give some compensation back to the people
in the form of a reduction or elimination of the GET..or other form of compensation.
This is outrageous! A county council official is paid more for doing very little than most of the residents are at their jobs. A Mayor of a population of only 70k+ making not too much less than a President. How??? This stuff only happens here in the middle of nowhere. Everyone else has enough sense to say something is wrong and these folks are wayyyyy overpaid! Meanwhile the island’s homeless population continues to grow and over half of these are local people not mainland transplants. Something is wrong folks!!!!
“Most councilmembers currently supplement their salaries with secondary income….”
Since when was SERVING on the county council a full-time job?? Collecting a paycheck should not be a reason to run for council. Almost 80K for meeting a handful of times a month…?? Unbelievable.
It’s laughable that they get the opportunity to vote on something that they and only them directly benefit from, and yet, they don’t have the decency to let Kauaians vote on an affordable housing measure that would benefit all of us.
Is this the “good enough” budgeting process that Council Chair Arryl Kaneshiro had such faith in…?? I’m sure it is. Looks like it’s working exactly like they want it to.
There isn’t much hope left for Kauai when the council votes on their own raises. This place is corrupt and the corruption continues to get worse by the day. Kauai is not what it used to be. Now it’s full of laughable salaries when the working people make no where near that much money. You get a group of people that sit around a table part time making $80k. This place is laughable and crooked. The pandemic showed me a lot about what has become of Kauai. We are one of the only places in the country where the brainwashing has worked. You go to the mainland and find people living normal lives treating covid like the cold and flu. I never thought I’d say that a trip to the mainland was refreshing but that’s why the Hawaiians are leaving Hawaii so they can live functional lives. Overpriced housing is a joke. This place hasn’t been paradise for a long time.