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Voters reject Glendale City Council pay raise, OK DVUSD funding measures

Posted 11/4/19

Glendale City Council asked its residents for a pay raise. The answer, according to unofficial results from Tuesday’s election, is a resounding “no.”

Proposition 424, which would …

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Voters reject Glendale City Council pay raise, OK DVUSD funding measures

Posted

Glendale City Council asked its residents for a pay raise. The answer, according to unofficial results from Tuesday’s election, is a resounding “no.”

Proposition 424, which would have increased City Council members’ pay by 55% and Mayor Jerry Weiers’ pay by 42%, was rejected 73.6% to 26.4%, according to unofficial results from the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office.

Voters also approved two funding measures for the Deer Valley Unified School District and a measure to Glendale to change the city’s primary election date to conform to state law.

Council pay

The Council pay raise would have increased Glendale’s six City Council members’ salaries from $34,000 to $52,685 and Mr. Weiers’ pay from $48,000 to $68,490. City Council member is meant to be a part-time job, and while many on Council work additional jobs, they say the Council job requires far more than part-time hours. It also would have linked both salaries to the median salary of city employees, setting Council up for automatic pay raises or reductions as staff pay changes.

Results show 17,563 residents voted against the pay raise and 6,298 voted for it. The 73.6% rejection was the widest margin of anything voted on in the county in Tuesday’s election, according to the unofficial results.

The pay raise plan was created by a five-person resident committee and approved by a 4-0 Council vote while three members were on vacation. Under the plan, council members would make 1% less than the median salary of both full- and part-time city employees and the mayor would make 30% more than that median salary.

Read more here.

DVUSD funding

Voters approved a measure allowing DVUSD to take issue up to $175,000 in bonds 58.1% to 41.9%. The bonds will be paid back through property taxes of homeowners in the district, but DVUSD has said it has structured payments to keep the current tax rate flat.

Voters narrowly approved a continuation DVUSD’s 15% maintenance and operations budget override 51.1 to 48.9. This was the tightest result of the four questions put to Glendale voters Tuesday and would be the likeliest to change should anything from the unofficial results change. This would also be paid for by property taxes, and would continue the current tax rate.

Primary date change

Lastly, Glendale voters approved Proposition 425 to change the city’s primary election date to conform to state law 69.2% to 30.8%. The state legislature recently changed the state-wide primary date from 10 weeks before the general election to the first Tuesday in August, which would be Aug. 4 in 2020. Prop. 425 not only conforms Glendale’s primary date to this change but automatically conforms it to the state-wide date should it change in the future.

Read more here.