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.

Those comparisons put Murray salaries "right on average," human resource director Dale Whittle said. But Murray's pay scale is far above similar-sized cities such as Cottonwood Heights.

Murray's community development director, for example, makes $101,000 compared with Cottonwood Heights, where the director makes $70,000. Murray's police and fire chiefs both also make more than chiefs in South Jordan and Midvale, which have comparable populations.

Beyond population

Other cities say population should not be a primary factor in employee salaries. The dynamics and growth of certain cities also have to be considered, said Myles Rademan, Park City spokesman.

Although Park City ranks low in population with only 7,400 permanent residents, the resort town has more than a million visitors each year, he said.

"It's a whole different game. The level of expectation is much higher because we're competing in a global market," Rademan said. "We're not in a maintenance mode of just providing services."

Some of Park City's top positions such as mayor, city engineer and public works director take home salaries comparable to those in cities almost four times its size.

Ricky Horst, city manager of South Jordan, said salary comparisons should also be based on the work a specific city demands of its employees because job descriptions vary greatly from city to city.

That, he said, is why South Jordan's salaries appear high, especially when compared with larger Utah cities. Horst makes almost $8,000 more annually than Salt Lake's city administrator.

"In my case, I'm the CEO" of the city, Horst said. "In Sandy, the mayor is the CEO."

Competing for workers

The different styles of government make it difficult to draw conclusions from direct salary comparisons, Horst said. City managers in cities such as South Jordan that have part-time mayors often have more responsibilities than city administrators in areas such as Salt Lake that have full-time mayors.

"Even though we're smaller, we have to compete against the bigger markets," Horst said. "One of the problems we've had is that we would get (engineers) out of school, put them through their four-year training, get them their license, and then, boom, they're gone" to private-sector jobs.