North Pole wants its next mayor to work part time, for $2,000 a month

The North Pole City Council voted 5-2 Monday to cut the next mayor's pay to $2,000 a month with no benefits. The job pays about $80,000 a year now, plus retirement, health insurance, vacation and comp time.

The change is not final. The council then voted 4-3 to postpone the underlying pay ordinance, which also carries a 3 percent raise for city workers, until Oct. 5, after members questioned whether the pay table would actually produce 3 percent and asked for a work session.

Mayor Pro Tem Brandt, who made the motion, argued the job is part time in practice. North Pole covers 4.2 square miles and about 2,500 residents, with 51 employees, and its police, fire, public works and utilities are largely run by department heads. He put the mayor's work at about two hours a day, which at $2,000 a month comes to roughly $50 an hour. Counting salary and benefits together, he said, "it doesn't make sense to pay $140,000, $150,000 a year to run a 2,500-resident city."

The figure is not arbitrary. Under city code, elected officials who earn less than $2,001 a month are left out of the state public employee retirement system. Two thousand dollars lands one dollar under the line.

Councilmen Schuster and Claus sided with Brandt. Skips and Councilwoman Rolfe voted no. "I'd want to be compensated for being all in on something, not just part-time," Skips said. Mayor Church asked who does the work when the director of city services, the person the job gets delegated to, "gives a 2-week notice and leaves the city." Brandt said the city would hire another one.

The change would not affect the current mayor. Under the city charter, any change in compensation waits until after the Oct. 6 election. Council members are paid $400 a month.