City and town managers are the top paid salaried employees of most local governments in the Valley, and Mesa City Manager Christopher J. Brady is no exception.
Brady is the city of Mesa’s highest paid employee with a salary of $304,907.20, a records request shows.
He became city manager in January 2006 and is the chief administrative officer of a municipality with approximately 4,000 employees in a city with a population of more than 512,000 residents.
Using public records, employees of the Daily Independent recently gathered and compared the salaries of the top 25 salaried employees from 16 municipalities across the Valley. The cities and towns were: Apache Junction, Buckeye, Chandler, Florence, Glendale, Gilbert, Goodyear, Litchfield Park, Mesa, Peoria, Phoenix, Queen Creek, Paradise Valley, Scottsdale, Surprise and Tempe.
The city of Mesa has the most top 25 highest-paid municipal employees in the Valley for 2023.
Mesa has one more employee on that list than the city of Phoenix, the data show. Phoenix has 1.644 million residents, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
In a comparison of the Valley municipalities, Brady is the third-highest paid employee overall. The top two of the 15 municipalities are Phoenix City Manager Jeffrey Barton at $372,814 and Tempe City Manager Rosa Inchausti at $315,000.
If contract employees are included, Brady would be fourth behind Barton; Jim Thompson, previous city manager for the city of Scottsdale, at $347,000; and Inchausti.
In addition to Brady, three other city of Mesa employees made the top 25 paid employees of the 15 municipalities. They are:
No. 16, Mesa Assistant City Manager Scott J. Butler, $252,553.60;
No. 18, Mesa City Attorney James N. Smith, $249,080; and
No. 24, Mesa Police Chief Kenneth D. Cost, $241,072.
The rest of Mesa’s employees range from No. 32 to No. 158 on the overall list.
The city of Mesa strives to offer competitive salaries within the labor market.
“The city has a benchmarking process to collect market data on key city positions to help make adjustments to our salaries and compensation,” Brady said in an email. “Our compensation philosophy is to be at or above market average. The city also conducts studies of salaries of neighboring Valley cities to make sure our pay scale remains competitive in the current job market.”
Some salaries are decided by the city council, which is made up of six council members each elected to represent a district; and an elected mayor.
The council is responsible for hiring and determining compensation for the city manager, city clerk, city attorney, city auditor and magistrate, as required by the city charter under Section 401, Brady said.
The city charter section can be viewed at https://library.municode.com/az/mesa/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=MECH.
City management, including department directors and managers, hire the remaining city employees, Brady said.
“Compensation is determined by a pay plan, which provides a range of compensation for each position,” he said.
Richard H. Dyer can be reached at rdyer@iniusa.org, or on Twitter @rhdyer. To voice your opinion on this story, connect with us at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.
Meet Richard Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia Inc. USA since 1987, starting his career in Apache Junction as a copy editor and being promoted over the years to work as the editor of the Mesa Independent, news services editor for the East Valley office in Apache Junction, managing editor for the East Valley office, news services editor for the East Valley office and eventually also for the newspapers at INI’s then-Chandler office, managing editor again and as a news editor covering Apache Junction/Gold Canyon and Queen Creek. He helped start the Florence Independent while the news editor covering Apache Junction and Mesa news. In January 2023, he became associate managing editor for the East Valley newspapers and in August 2023 became managing editor for the East Valley newspapers of Chandler/Tempe, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Florence, Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon, while also reporting on Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon.
Community: Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions.
Education: University of Arizona with a master of arts in journalism and a bachelor of science in agricultural communication. Also continuing education at Mesa Community College in welding in a metal art sculpture class.
Random fact: Saw his first tornado on May 31, 2010, which was classified as an EF-2, as part of a stormchasing tour group.
Hobbies: He is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows.
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