During the city council Finance & Administration Committee meeting Wednesday, January 27th, the new Mayor of Ferndale, Jon Mutchler, asked committee members to recommend to City Council to provide paid health care benefits for himself and his family.
Mayor Mutchler pointed out he has initially been putting in 30 to 35 hours per week in his role as mayor, noting he expects to reduce that to less than 30 hours in the near future. He said he was hoping a decision could be made quickly as he needed to make a decision in time to meet an upcoming enrollment deadline.
Outside of his responsibilities as mayor, Mutchler is, according to his personal website, pastor of the Ferndale Alliance Church and self-employed as a piano teacher and professional pianist. Compensation for the Mayor of Ferndale is approximately $2500 $1644 per month (see note below regarding correction).
City staff had researched the costs involved under the city’s current employee health benefit plan as would be offered to qualified city staff and determined for a family with two or more children, such as Mayor Mutchler’s, the cost to the city would be approximately $1600 per month to offer coverage with a zero copay. The same coverage for just the mayor, not including family, would be $600 per month.
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Click for more informationStaff said their research indicated large municipalities typically would provide such benefits to their elected officials. This, according to staff, corresponded with the full-time responsibilities of elected officials in large cities and towns.
The topic wasn’t on the original meeting agenda and was initially presented by city staff as the idea of offering such benefits to all councilmembers and the mayor.
The committee decided to send to council for further discussion the proposal of making the offer available only to the mayor. This will likely occur at the next regular Ferndale City Council Meeting on February 1st.
NOTE:
1/27/16 11:30pm – After this article was posted, Mayor Mutchler emailed a document to Discover Ferndale that included signed handwritten notes by City Finance Director Mark Peterson appearing to indicate the mayoral compensation for 2016 would be set at $1,644 per month. The notes, dated November of last year, appear to explain how, using the requirements of Ordinance 1825, they calculated the compensation level relative to other mayors in similar size cities. This amount is not able to be confirmed anywhere in the city archive of documents which is the only available resource at this late hour.
1/28/16 8am – City staff have confirmed the Mayor is currently compensated at $1644 per month.