As vote approaches on Harford council pay raises, same old issues come to fore

When the Harford County Council held its first legislative session on Jan. 2, 1973, it took place in the former meeting room of the county commissioners, who were replaced when county voters adopted a home rule charter a month earlier.The meeting room was in the front of what is today the Sheriff's Office headquarters at 45 S. Main St. in Bel Air. The seven council members and their Secretary – with a capital &quot;S,&quot; it was noted, as stated by the charter – and their one other staff member shared two offices in the rear of the same building.As prescribed by the new charter, the six council members were paid $5,000 annually, the council president $6,500.Much has happened to Harford County and its local legislative body in the intervening years.The county's population has more than doubled from about 120,000 to 250,000. The county budget has grown to $642 million from just over $30 million.And, the county council has become an enterprise unto itself, occupying two floors of another Bel Air building, known as the Black Box on Bond Street, and employing a full-time staff of 21 people, handling not only legislation, but also zoning appeals decisions, and overseeing a county auditor staff and the local public television station, Harford Cable Network. The council's annual budget is $2.88 million, some 36 times greater than in 1973.Council members salaries have evolved over 44 years to $36,750 annually for a district council member and $40,310 for council president.Pending legislation would raise the base pay for future council members and council president to $43,500 and $47,000, respectively, increases of 18.4 percent and 16.6 percent, effective July 1, 2019, seven months after the council members elected in November 2018 take office. Under the county charter, the council in office cannot vote itself a raise.The legislation is expected to be voted on at the Nov. 1 council meeting, with five votes required for its passage.The proposed pay increase has resulted in predictable public backlash toward what its sponsor concedes is a &quot;touchy&quot; subject, which in Harford has long crystallized around the question of should county council members be viewed as public servants with minimal compensation, or as professional legislators.An Oct. 11 public hearing elicited comments from 11 people, some, though not all, who are regular attendees at council meetings. All but two opposed the raises, several in vitriolic terms.Similar legislation was proposed in 2014 and the negative public reaction was such that its two sponsors, who were leaving the council at the end of their terms, withdrew it before it even got to the public hearing stage.Councilman James McMahan, sponsor of the latest pay increase bill, says he will press ahead with trying to pass it. He declined to say if he has the necessary votes.Increasing demands&quot;I think some people don't understand what we do, or that this increase is not for anyone on this council,&quot; says McMahan, who at age 78 is the council's oldest member and is serving his third four-year term. He also says many people don't understand what serving on the council entails, from the time commitment to the increasing demands of constituents to the abuse council members receive in the social media age.McMahan tried driving those points home repeatedly during the nearly one hour he held the floor at the 90-minute public hearing. He also presented the council with the results of a comparative compensation study performed by five prominent residents, including a former 12-year-council member.The group looked at salaries, health insurance and other benefits, expense reimbursements and factors such as numbers of constituents per council member, based on county population, and median household incomes. It recommended new base salaries a few hundred dollars above what McMahan has proposed.The advisory committee, which was chaired by Klein's ShopRite executive Howard Klein, also recommended that the council consider a periodic, structured review process for council salaries every four years, writing in its final report to the councilman:&quot;Harford County's Council would certainly face political opposition to increasing its base compensation during the current council term, primarily because the current national mood does not favor any expansion of government pay or benefits. These pressures, however, should be weighed against (a) ever-increasing demands placed on citizen-legislators in a growing county with an increasingly complex budget and (b) the long-term 'deflationary' effect of inflation on salaried compensation.&quot;Bill Seccurro, a retired educator and former Harford Chamber of Commerce executive, who represented the study group at the public hearing, said they also found all the elected council members in the other counties were considered &quot;part-time&quot; employees. Harford's charter and code make no such distinction, Council President Richard Slutzky quickly noted, a point he has made previously.Part- or full-time, Harford Council members receive the same medical benefits as other county employees and are eligible for state retirement benefits open to elected officials.Many of the opponents who spoke at the hearing and others say comparing Harford County to Howard County, a long-time standard in many local public issues, not just this one, is misleading, because of Howard's bigger population (about 50,000 more residents) and higher median household income $106,000 versus $78,448 for Harford. There are just five council members in Howard, with annual salaries of $59,590 for the president and $55,600 for the other four.Dave Pridgen, a founder of Harford Campaign for Liberty, a Tea Party movement affiliated group, suggested at the public hearing that a more apt comparison would be Frederick County, which made the transition to a county executive/county council form of government in 2014.Frederick has about 10,000 fewer residents than Harford, according to the latest census estimates, but its public school system has 3,200 more students than Harford's and public school funding is the largest portion of any Maryland county's annual budget. Frederick's median household income is also higher than Harford's at $82,311. Its seven county council members are paid $22,500 annually.Hard sell comparisonHistorically, comparing Harford to other counties has been a hard sell, however, when it comes to what local elected officials are paid. There's also no clear indication whether its members paid a political price on election day after past pay increases were approved by a Harford council.With Perrone having already said he's against the legislation, McMahan needs five of the six remaining votes to get the raise bill passed.Like Perrone, council members Patrick Vincenti and Curtis Beulah were elected to the first terms in 2014. Slutzky, who backed away from the 2014 legislation, is in his fourth term. Like McMahan, council members Joe Woods and Chad Shrodes are in their third. Presumably, a few of them are thinking ahead to running in 2018.McMahan says the amount of opposition that has come into the council office via phone, email and letter has been surprisingly light.Although Pridgen's group submitted a petition against the pay increases with 500 names, Slutzky said Tuesday that there were no addresses – only ZIP codes, no signatures, phone numbers or emails – making it impossible to verify them. Plus, he said, some names were duplicated and others had ZIP codes outside of Harford County.Nevertheless, he said, in accordance with council rules, the petition will be kept on file; &quot;however, the credibility of this type of petition is often, always questionable.&quot;A retired local radio station owner and personality with a long career in community service, McMahan said there have been good points made on both sides of the issue, but he also says he wishes some of those who spoke against the bill at the public hearing would spend two weeks with him without being paid.&quot;I believe I would see some changes in the thought process,&quot; he said of the opponents, adding: &quot;I had two careers...this political thing for me was really more of a personal 'calling,' not a career. I see some good things that have been accomplished, but some disasters in hindsight, too.&quot;

As vote approaches on Harford council pay raises, same old issues come to fore

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