Horiuchi pulls pay-raise proposal

A proposal that would have opened the door for Salt Lake County Council members to more than double their annual salaries appears to be on the shelf following a surge of negative public reaction.

The idea, posed by veteran Democratic Councilman Randy Horiuchi, would have allowed council members to trim the $73,000 standard pay rate of their administrative assistants and shift the funds to themselves, along with a commitment of working about 10 additional hours a week.

The tactic could have provided a bump from the current council rate of about $35,000 annually to over $80,000 a year.

Horiuchi said last week that the idea was to address challenges facing council members including being more available to constituents and addressing a workload that requires more hours than their part-time status recognizes.

"I feel like voters should be able to talk to me, or another elected official when they have a problem or a question and not an assistant," Horiuchi said. "We are all working more hours then we bargained for ... some members have seven community councils in their districts ... there's just not enough time to be out there doing the job as good as we could be doing it."

The plan would not have altered the current budget allotment for salaries paid to council members and their staff, since funds would have been reallocated, without changing the net payouts.

The leader of the panel's minority Republicans, Councilman Jeff Allen, said Monday that while he agrees the hours required regularly exceeded part-time, Horiuchi's plan wasn't the best way to address the issue.

"We don't need to work more hours to be a better government," Allen said. "Taking a look at the structure of the council and staff would probably be worthwhile, but this isn't the right way to go."

Allen said he had received an overwhelmingly negative response from his constituents on the matter in a volume of calls and e-mails as great as "any other issue that's been before us that's created controversy."

Allen also noted the plan would likely have created an "imbalance" among council members, with some opting for the extended hours and pay, while others stayed with the current system. Those anomalies, Allen said, would only work to undermine the underlying imperative of the council-mayor system put into place eight years ago.

"We need to continue to do what we are all statutorily bound to do ... function as a part-time legislative branch working with a full-time executive ... Mayor Corroon," Allen said.

The compensation proposal had been scheduled for a hearing by the council's executive committee today, but was canceled due to Horiuchi's decision not to move forward with the idea.

It still appears as an agenda item on the Council of the Whole meeting this afternoon, but only as an "informational" item, scheduled to be presented by Democratic Council Chairman Joe Hatch. Last week Hatch issued tentative support for the idea, but thought the proposal had been "demagogued" by other council members and may be challenged by the body.

E-mail: araymond@desnews.com