At the May 18 2020 Milton City Council meeting Mayor Styron-Sherrell stated

“I do want to look at the legality of things, because in past conversations with Mayor Eidinger of Edgewood, he told me how they’ve done it, and it seems like it has to go through a salary commission. And I would like to verify the process of that. You know, obviously I don’t know how this works. I want to have staff look into that with your guys approval.” (May 18, 2020; 9:51)

Our Mayor should have known how it works, since she and the Mayor of Fife had several email conversations, from December 2018 to June 2019, discussing the salary commission process — how Fife set up their salary commission, its history, and pitfalls.

And here is an email from August 13, 2019, between Chief Hernandez and Edgewood Mayor Eidinger, regarding their salary commission.

And here’s the binder Chief Hernandez gave to Council Member Morton (sometime between fall, 2019 and the May, 2020 council meeting). It contains salary commission information from eleven surrounding cities and Pierce County, plus City Administrator information and salaries.

We had the information – why didn’t Milton establish a salary commission?  It would have saved time, effort, and the political drama.

At the July 6, 2020 City Council Meeting, Chief Hernandez said “…you can exercise your legislative authority and pass an ordinance, or you could delay and do the salary commission, understanding that once you release that authority to a salary commission they will have the decision and the authority to set the rate of pay for either council or the mayor, and then you will have to live with that decision.” (July 6, 2020; 15:54)

Is it just me, or is he saying “live with that decision” like it’s a bad thing?

And actually, according to the Revised Code of Washington, it’s the opposite. The Municipal Research Service Center states “If a salary commission is created, the elected officials are paid the salaries established by the commission, although the salaries are subject to referendum”.   So salaries set by salary commissions can be overturned through the referendum process — so they wouldn’t have to live with our decision if enough citizens agreed. But elected official salaries set by our City Council are not subject to referendum, since Milton has never adopted the referendum process for their decisions (a discussion for another day, but here’s some info). So we the citizens are left to live with their decision, and perhaps that’s the point.