Does city government deserve a raise?
By George P. Hassett

Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone and members of the Board of Aldermen and the School Committee are underpaid compared to elected officials in other nearby cities and could be up for an increase in pay.

  The Municipal Compensation Advisory Board released a study this week that reviewed how Somerville pays in comparison to other cities. The board members were appointed by Curtatone and aldermen.
  Under a proposed wage classification chart the board submitted to the city last week, pay hikes for aldermen would jump by as much as 65 percent to $29,267, giving board members a raise they have not seen in 10 years. And School Committee members could see an increase from their current salary of $7,700 to as much as $10,507. The mayor‚Äôs salary would increase by as much as 45% to $124,447.
  From the animal control officer on up, nearly every position in the city would see a significant pay increase. If aldermen raised rates to the maximum in the  proposed salary range, the mayor‚Äôs chief of staff would see the biggest increase ‚Äì 95% — from $56,291 to $115,065.
   Thomas P. Champion, spokesperson for Curtatone, said a new ordinance outlining  salary increases would ‚Äúcertainly not take every salary to the top of the proposed range and may not even make recommendations to the bottom of the pay range.‚Äù
  Champion said the process of Curtatone and city aldermen discussing, designing and eventually passing a new ordinance increasing their own pay would be ‚Äúpublic and above board.‚Äù
   ‚ÄúIf this is a system to allow City Hall insiders to design their own pay raises its not a very good system,‚Äù he said. ‚Äúthe appointments to the Municipal Compensation Advisory Board are public and the findings are public. Many of the non-union employees who work for the city, including the mayor, have not seen salary increases for more than five years.
   Thomas Bent, a member of the advisory board, said he served similar boards under former mayors Michael E. Capuano and Dorothy Kelly Gay. He said the board met 20 times over a seven to eight month period and members were not paid. The board compared Somerville pay rates to 11 nearby cities ranging from Medford to Boston, he said.
   The board wants to professionalize city jobs and implement a performance evaluation system to reward dutiful city workers, he said.
   Bent said the process was designed to set pay rates for specific jobs not the people who may currently have them now.
   ‚ÄúThis was about the positions not the people who may have  the positions now,‚Äù he said.