Boulder’s mayor and city councilors may well be underpaid. But they won’t be getting a raise anytime soon.
At its monthly Monday evening, the City Council took up the question of its own pay. Currently, Mayor Rusty Giulio is paid $625 per quarter, or $208.33 a month. Councilors Drew Dawson, Shane Maichel, Sherry Lepley and Mike Taylor each make $225 per quarter, or $75 a month.
Those salaries are on the low end of a 2018 survey of Montana municipalities by the MontanaLeague of Cities and Towns. Among comparable cities and towns, Big Sandy pays its mayor $400 per month and its councilors $250. The mayor of Choteau receives $700 monthly; council members there get $175. In Manhattan, the mayor is paid $730 a month, and councilors $120.
But Giulio and the councilors declined to award themselves increases. “We’re probably on low end,” Giulio said, “but the only way I’d agree to anything like this if we could budget for this and pay for it.”
Dawson said he saw an ethical concern around raising his own salary. “I have an issue with increasing our pay during term of office,” he said. “I don’t have a problem raising it for someone whose term is coming up.”
The Council agreed to table the pay discussion pending a review of the budget. But Leonard Wortman, a Jefferson County Commissioner, observed: “You all are way underpaid for what you do.”
