Fort Mill elected officials could more than double their pay. It only takes one vote.

Getting elected in Fort Mill could soon be a little more lucrative.

On Monday morning, Fort Mill Town Council passed the first of two votes needed to increase members’ pay. If approved, the mayor and council positions will more than double in salary.

“It was a 4-3 vote to bring salaries up to an average amount, based on the communities or municipalities within the state that are similar in size,” said Mayor Guynn Savage.

Savage, along with council members Larry Huntley and Lisa McCarley, voted against the increases. Council members Trudie Heemsoth, Ronnie Helms, Chris Moody and Jamie Shirey voted in favor.

Now, town code has the mayor making $4,200 and a council member $2,400 per year. The proposed change brings the salary for the mayor’s office to $10,600. A council salary increases to $7,000. Those represent bumps of 152 percent for mayor and 192 percent for council.

Council looked at data from 20 South Carolina municipalities including Fort Mill, based on last year’s population estimate, with Fort Mill in the middle. Fort Mill had the second highest growth rate since 2010, the second highest annual budget and the fifth highest annual payroll cost in the state.

Yet, only one municipality —Tega Cay — had lower pay for a council member at $2,200. The $4,500 the mayor gets in Tega Cay also ranked lowest among comparable municipalities to Fort Mill.

Cayce, the nearest municipality to Fort Mill based on estimated population, pays $15,000 per council member and $18,000 for the mayor. Of the 20, nine municipalities pay their council members, mayors or both at least $10,000 per year.

Shirey said council members don’t like talking salaries or increases, and he didn’t know when he first ran for office there even was a salary. But he voted for the increase based on fairness to the current and future councils.

“We were one of the lowest ones out there,” Shirey said. “When we put a budget together, we always look at cost of living increases for employees. At some point it came up, well what about council?”

He would like to see something in town code where periodic pay changes come up for vote. Maybe a 3 percent increase council can vote on every decade or so, to where the issue doesn’t just arise because council brings it up which could create questions as to why.

“That way it becomes a moot point,” Shirey said.

Council evaluates and determines pay for employees up to and including the town manager, whose primary responsibility is running the town’s daily operation. The person in that role now, Dennis Pieper, said he didn't offer a recommendation on the raises to council. Town staff simply provided the data from similar municipalities statewide.

“It was just presented as information,” Pieper said.

While Savage didn’t vote for the increases, she understands why several members did. Council members spend considerable time on town business. Some say they spend 15 hours or so preparing for monthly or bi-monthly meetings, plus weekend and other time working on major projects like an ongoing unified development ordinance which will guide building development standards for decades.

Savage said she and others have a considerably more work to do that she did in the not-to-distant past when she served on council.

“There was a request from council members to assess where we stood in the state on our salaries, and that assessment came back that we were one of the lowest in the state and had not had an increase in that for 17 years,” she said.

On Monday, council met at 7:30 a.m. for a regular meeting where they voted on budgeting and other issues. Then they held a workshop until past lunchtime ironing out unified development ordinance details.

A final vote on the pay increases is expected Oct. 9. The new pay scale would begin Jan. 8, 2018.

Three of the six council seats are up for election Nov. 7.

This story was originally published September 25, 2017 at 2:48 PM with the headline "Fort Mill elected officials could more than double their pay. It only takes one vote.."