Montgomery County Council member George Leventhal is not backing down from a fight with the county’s executive branch over the salaries of senior-level employees in the county.
On Tuesday, Leventhal introduced a bill that would require the county executive to develop a salary schedule for county department heads and political appointees who serve as advisers to the executive.
“I think most of our constituents would be surprised that we do not have a pay scale at the very top end of our government,” Leventhal said.
Leventhal explained that then-County Executive Doug Duncan eliminated pay scales for upper-level employees in the late-1990s because Duncan believed it was necessary to have the flexibility to hire the best and brightest from other governments.
However, since then, compensation for those county employees has increased “beyond what is necessary to attract the best and brightest,” Leventhal said.
Leventhal proposed the bill after County Executive Ike Leggett pushed back strongly against a government report that found the county’s senior-level employees were paid more than their counterparts in neighboring jurisdictions. Leggett called the report “deeply flawed” in a statement and said that while the county does pay its high-ranking employees well, it employs less of them to do the same jobs performed by more employees in other jurisdictions—thus saving the county money.
A public hearing on the bill is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Jan. 12 at the Council Office Building in Rockville. The bill is co-sponsored by council members Marc Elrich and Craig Rice.
The report—written by researchers at the Office of Legislative Oversight—found that county directors’ average annual salaries were the highest in the Baltimore and Washington region—nearly 10 percent higher than those of similar employees in Baltimore County and about 17 percent higher than those of senior federal employees.
The report also noted the county’s directors of budget, environmental protection, housing, public information, procurement and corrections all collected the highest salaries among county directors across the United States whose salaries were compared in the report. Overall, the county’s average pay for directors of county agencies is $206,685; coming in third among the 20 local governments and two federal classifications of employees examined by the OLO.
Leventhal said he knew the introduction of his bill would “not be greeted positively by the executive branch,” but added that the bill would allow the administration to set the salary schedule, which would then be reviewed and approved by the council. He also said the bill includes a waiver provision to allow the county to offer a salary in excess of those included in the schedule to a “truly outstanding candidate.”
Leventhal said he is concerned that an approach by the county’s human resources department to maintain “internal equity” is inflating salaries of certain directors. He said using that approach, rather than comparing salaries to similar positions in other jurisdictions, “will create wage inflation.”
Charts via Office of Legislative Oversight report.
