Well, we already compared salaries for ASSISTANT to the City manager and found that ours is overpaid by roughly 35%
Now let’s take a gander at the Head Cheese himself. Finley will be pulling down $162,240 after the latest round of 4% raises for everyone.
A quick search of salary.com gives us some answers:
Uh oh. Whoopsie! Finley appears to be overpaid by about 35% as well! Just like his side-kick Dwight Schrute.
What are the odds? Quite good, as it turns out. You see, when Finley hired Schrute on for $110,000 (which was $25,000 OVER normal) what he essentially did was make sure HIS salary would be too high as well – because we can’t have the MANAGER making only a teeny bit more than the ASSISTANT, now can we?
Such a sneaky little shit. Such are the tactics of the life-long bureaucrat.
Let’s take a look at some of the MANY cities listed on Salary.com and see what they pay their managers compared to Finley’s $162,240:
Burnet, TX: $117,863 (population 6,800 – comparable to Lampasas)
Floresville, TX: $72,244 (population 8,050 – comparable to Lampasas)
Lake Dallas, TX: $125,008 (population 7,830 – comparable to Lampasas)
Jasper, TX: $150,970 (population 7,500) – NOTE: this is for a COMBINED position of City Manager AND Finance Director. We pay OUR finance director ALONE over $96,000. Ergo, Jasper pays $150,970 for both positions and we pay over $258,000 for the same two jobs – 72% MORE.
Kirby, TX: $98,427 (population 8,100 – comparable to Lampasas)
Navasota, TX: $141,677 (population 8,500 – larger than Lampasas)
Los Fresnos, TX: $123,000 (population 8,215 – comparable to Lampasas)
River Oaks, TX: $117,790 (population 7,500 – comparable to Lampasas)
Of course, we cannot forget to add in the generous health insurance, retirement and other benefits. Bringing Finley’s cost to the taxpayer up to over $225,000 per year. Every year.
Also, keep in mind that MANY of the towns listed above do NOT have an assistant manager position! In other words, these managers don’t have a lackey like Ryan Ward to dump their shit work onto. They run the City BY THEMSELVES.
The dynamic duo of Finley and Schrute total cost to taxpayers to run Lampasas, a town of 7,500? Over $400,000 per year.
Up next….Police Chief comparisons.