{"id":1318779,"date":"2020-03-16T17:28:23","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T23:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=994645"},"modified":"2020-03-16T17:28:23","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T23:28:23","slug":"new-castle-town-council-may-give-pay-raise-to-future-town-councilors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/new-castle-town-council-may-give-pay-raise-to-future-town-councilors\/","title":{"rendered":"New Castle Town Council may give pay raise to future town councilors"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Post<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

New Castle\u2019s sitting town council may decide to give future mayors and councilors of the town a raise. <\/p>\n

Currently, New Castle\u2019s mayor earns $470 a month and its town council members $370 a month. <\/p>\n

Ordinance 2020-4, if approved at Tuesday evening\u2019s regularly scheduled town council meeting, would increase the mayor\u2019s compensation to $1,000 a month. <\/p>\n

Additionally, under the ordinance the mayor pro tempore would earn $750 a month and New Castle town councilors $500 a month.<\/p>\n

Town council cannot vote to increase its own pay. Therefore, the raise, if approved, would not take effect until 2022 \u2013 following two council elections. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been 10 years,\u201d Mayor Art Riddile said of council\u2019s last raise. \u201cWe thought it was about time and when they go into effect it\u2019ll be 12 years.\u201d  <\/p>\n

At a work session earlier this month, the New Castle Town Council looked at what nearby municipalities of comparable size paid their locally elected officials. <\/p>\n

Carbondale, which has a population of just under 7,000 residents, pays its mayor $1,500 a month and trustees $900 a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably averages 10 to 15 (hours per week),\u201d Carbondale Mayor Dan Richardson said. \u201cI probably spend just as much time responding to emails as I do attending meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carbondale\u2019s Board of Trustees meets twice a month and meetings can run over three hours depending on the agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be paid on a fair hourly wage to do this job,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cThere should be some component of public service in it, in my opinion.\u201d <\/p>\n

Glenwood Springs, which has nearly 10,000 residents, pays its mayor $1,200 a month and council members $1,000 a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe job\u2019s probably 20 to 25 hours a week and it\u2019s not just going to meetings. It\u2019s studying agendas, reading reports,\u201d Rick Voorhees, Glenwood Springs city councilor, said. \u201cSometimes the agendas are 350 pages long.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Glenwood Springs City Council meets on the first and third Thursday every month in addition to work sessions. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll in all it\u2019s a very poor hourly wage but I think a real satisfying thing to do for the community,\u201d Voorhees said. <\/p>\n

The town of Silt, which has a population of just over 3,000, pays its mayor $600 a month and councilors $400 a month.<\/p>\n

New Castle has a population of approximately 4,800 residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re way behind compared to other municipalities,\u201d Riddile said. <\/p>\n

New Castle recently canceled its upcoming municipal election because not enough candidates decided to run. However, Riddile said the raise was not an attempt to generate more interest in getting residents to seek local office.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at major transportation issues in our area. We\u2019re looking at recreation increasing,\u201d Riddile said. \u201cThis takes time and commitment not just from me but from all of our other councilors too.\u201d   <\/p>\n

mabennett@postindependent.com<\/a> <\/em> <\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Castle\u2019s sitting town council may decide to give future mayors and councilors of the town a raise.  Currently, New Castle\u2019s mayor earns $470 a month and its town council members $370 a month.  Ordinance 2020-4, if approved at Tuesday evening\u2019s regularly scheduled town council meeting, would increase the mayor\u2019s compensation to $1,000 a month.  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1318779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-04 07:31:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1318779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1318779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1318779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1318779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1318779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}