He said there has been a similar problem with police and fire officers, who often leave for larger cities once they have been trained. And in the end, he said, South Jordan residents may be saving money by reducing turnover and the amount of new-employee training required.

Even in Sandy — where management salaries were often above or on par with Salt Lake wages — human resources director Brian Kelley said the city has had a problem with employees chasing higher wages in nearby cities.

"We feel like we've been struggling in terms of giving out salaries in the last couple of years," he said. "There just hasn't been as much revenue."

Eric Keck, Draper city manager, said many departments in Draper saw a mass employee exodus to neighboring cities such as West Jordan this year due to a 30 percent lag in salaries. City leaders recently boosted several salaries, including those of the city engineer and finance director, who both got a 10 percent raise and will probably get more next year.

"It will really help with morale. When we need to recruit additional people, we won't be behind in the marketplace," Keck said. "We will be able to attract competent people."

Duty to taxpayers?

But while cities need to hold on to talented employees, Mike Jerman of the Utah Taxpayers Association said city leaders need to make sure they are doing it at the lowest possible cost to taxpayers.

"The purpose of government jobs is to provide service to taxpayers. Government employment is not a jobs program," Jerman said. "Government jobs exist to serve taxpayers."

Some cities may be going to extremes, Jerman said, with city employees "being taken care of too well." High salaries like that of the Sandy city administrator "definitely seem out of line," Jerman said, particularly because government employment is fairly secure.

Government employees also get hefty retirement and benefits packages that only add to some of the state's highest-paid public servants. In Sandy, the city administrator's salary bumps up to $185,000 when those benefits are factored in, and the police chief takes in about $150,000 in gross compensation.

"There's always going to be one local government that's going to be better paid than everybody else," he said. "But to use that as an excuse to say we deserve what they're getting is basically a race to the top and definitely not good for taxpayers."

Salt Lake City leaders try not to get caught up in that cycle of higher salaries, said Vic Blanton, compensation program manager. Instead, the city shoots for an average of city wages from cities sometimes much smaller than Salt Lake.