Wage gap: Not all cities pay the same

While some are scraping the bottom of their budgets for extra cash, others are shelling out big bucks to lure city employees away from other governments and private companies.

A Deseret Morning News survey of 30 Utah cities found those high-paying governments are not limited to the state's largest municipalities. In fact, the most populous cities often trail smaller cities that have upped salaries to compete.

Sandy and Murray, for example, regularly rival or even trump government wages in larger Salt Lake City and West Valley City. The Sandy city administrator's salary of $134,000 beats that of the Salt Lake City administrator by $10,000, even though Sandy is roughly half the size of the 182,000-resident capital city.

Sandy also has a full-time mayor who makes abut the same $101,000 figure as Salt Lake City's Mayor Rocky Anderson.

Sandy is not alone. City managers in South Jordan and St. George also top the Salt Lake City administrator's paycheck. The 2000 Census counted St. George's population at 50,000 and South Jordan at 29,000 — less than one-sixth the size of Salt Lake City.

Steve Kroes, executive director of the Utah Foundation research group, said taxpayers who are footing the bill for city paychecks may be shocked by how much city leaders are making.

"I know the information is public, but it's not something that the cities are eager to publish," Kroes said. "I don't think they like the heat they get when taxpayers get mad that city employees are making more than they are."

Above-average pay

Many Utah city employees are taking home more money than the national average reported by the International City Management Association. The 2003 survey cited city managers' salaries at $92,000, while 18 of the 30 surveyed Utah cities had higher-paid city managers or administrators.

The national average for a police chief was $68,000, which was topped by all but one of the surveyed cities that have police chiefs.

Kroes noted that while most Utah cities' pay scales don't seem way out of line, several cities did seem disproportionate. That may be evidence of escalating city wages statewide as city leaders benchmark pay rates against other cities to recruit the best employees, he said.

"We don't want to see our cities losing talent, but cities can tend to reinforce themselves in a vicious cycle where they survey each other," Kroes said. "The cities that are low will boost their salaries to match the average and next time around the averages are higher. The cycle tends to escalate salaries faster than they need to."

In Murray, which ranks in the middle of the population pack with 34,000 residents, city leaders measure their income against employees in much larger cities such as Provo, West Valley and West Jordan.

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