- November 7, 2024
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Palm Coast City Manager Jim Landon might get up to a 4% — or about $6,800 — raise.
Landon, who makes a base salary of $168,878, requested the raise during a City Council workshop Jan. 31, noting that he hasn’t received a raise in eight years. He has been the city manager for 10 years, since Feb. 1, 2007.
“There were a few years where everybody got a raise in the city at that time; another year, anybody over $32,000 got a pay raise, and since then, we’ve always had pay raises — except for yours truly,” Landon told City Council members at the workshop. “It’s been eight years since I’ve had a pay raise. Last year, I requested something very minimal, trying to make it simple. It becomes very political, and we have a discussion out in the community, so it’s not simple.”
The City Council last considered a pay raise for Landon in July, before the election that brought in new Mayor Milissa Holland and council members Nick Klufas and Robert Cuff.
The former council voted 3-2 against a pay raise for Landon at the time.
But Holland, speaking during the Jan. 31 workshop, gave the city manager high marks. She noted that she was basing her evaluation of Landon solely on her experience with him since she took office, which included the recovery effort following Hurricane Matthew.
“I’m very proud of Palm Coast,” she said. “Just coming back from a League of Cities conference, I can tell you there is no greater pride than sitting in that room and truly understanding the value of a well-run city, as well as a fiscally well-run city. I think you handled the hurricane debris clean-up exceptionally well. ... I am in favor off keeping you on, and continuing momentum.”
Landon compared his pay to city staff members’ pay, noting that staff members have repeatedly received raises while he has not.
Landon’s contract calls for the potential for a pay raise every year, subject to the approval of the City Council. But it also calls for annual evaluations and salary reviews that for many years did not happen.
Landon told council members that average pay raises for city employees have been around been 3%-4%, and averaged 3.32%.
If he’d been receiving a 3.32% raise every year, he told council members, he would be making $205,437 this year. If he’d received 4%, he’d be making $213,685.
He suggested a few options: Doing a “salary reset” that would give him the equivalent to what would have been either a 1% or a 2% raise each year, putting him a either $180,000 or $190,000 this year, with automatic annual 2% increases in the future unless the City Council decides against them; or, giving him either a 3.32% raise this year (bringing him to $174,484) or a 4% raise this year (bringing him to $175,633, up $6,755), in both cases with automatic 2% raises in the future, subject to City Council approval.
The council members did not speak in favor of giving Landon retroactive pay to make up for the years in which he didn’t get a raise, with Holland saying that he could have asked for a raise in previous years.
Two council members out of the five — Robert Cuff and Nick Klufas — said they did not support automatic raises in the future.
“I’m not a big fan of automatic increases,” Cuff said. “It puts pressure on the council to say, ‘No, you’re not getting that this year.’”
The council didn’t make a decision at the workshop, and will consider the issue again in the future.
