- November 7, 2024
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Palm Coast City Manager Jim Landon will get a 4% raise, bringing his salary up $6,755 to a total of $175,633.
He didn't get everything he'd asked for: The City Council rejected Landon's request for 2% annual raises thereafter, opting instead, and the suggestion of City Councilman Bob Cuff, to give Landon 1% annual raises in following years, through 2021.
Landon has not received a raise for eight years, and requested a raise last year, before the new, current City Council was elected and sworn in. The previous City Council — which had only two of the current members — voted against the raise, 3-2.
Council member Heidi Shipley was one of the three members who voted against a proposed 2.9% raise for Landon last July. This time, she voted for a 4% raise.
"I think he’s earned it; I think he’s done a great job," she said at a Feb. 7 City Council meeting before the council's vote. Shipley said after the meeting that at the time of the previous vote, she'd wanted to address a few issues with Landon that have since been resolved.
City Councilman Steve Nobile said it bothered him that while he'd gotten many emails from residents opposing a raise for Landon, when major budget issues come up, there's little interest shown from the community.
"We’re talking about a $6,000 raise here, and last year when we had a $154 million budget meeting, nobody said a word," Nobile said. "And it just confuses me that we would go to bat and write six- and seven-page letters for a man's raise, who's doing a good job, but when it comes to the total package of $154 million, we're silent and we're OK with everything. ... We have the focus of a single person that we’re attacking negatively. Jim does his job, and he does his job very well."
Nobile said he supported a raise, but did not support adding to Landon's severance package.
Several residents spoke during the meeting's public comment period to oppose the proposed raise, pointing out that Landon's pay is higher than that of many state governors and that the raise would put him above the 2017 base salary of U.S. senators ($174,000).
Council members Nobile and Nick Klufas said they'd researched salaries for city managers managing cities comparable in size and revenue to Palm Coast, and found that Landon was in about the middle of the pay range for cities comparable to Palm Coast.
Cuff acknowledged residents' concerns, saying he understood that it was the council's job to make sure citizens are "getting their tax dollars' worth."
But, he said, Landon is doing a job not many people can do.
"We need to evaluate what the position is worth," he said. "And from what I've seen as a citizen, and admittedly only for a few months as a city council member, it's a job that not many people can do. ... To me, tonight it looks to me like we've got someone who is doing the job that we expect him to do, for a pay package that is, from what I can determine with independent research, in line with the responsibilities of that job."
