Star Tribune
Are Minneapolis City Council members overpaid? And is Frey underpaid?
Minneapolis City Council members are paid more than most of their peers — and the mayor is paid less — in comparable cities across the nation.
That’s the conclusion of a study commissioned by council members, who responded to it with quiet.
The city’s 13 council members are currently paid $109,846 a year, and Mayor Jacob Frey is paid $140,814 annually.
Neither of those figures will change for at least the next two years — the end of the council members’ elected terms — according to a resolution and annual budget unanimously approved by the council and signed by Frey. Under a process created by the council that follows state law, council members and the mayor set the salaries to take effect the next elected term, and run for the duration of those terms.
The study, completed by the city clerk’s office, found that of nine comparable cities and St. Paul, only Seattle pays its City Council more in cost-of-living-adjusted dollars than Minneapolis. Minneapolis taxpayers pay their council members nearly $29,000 more than the average of those nine cities.
Meanwhile, Frey’s salary is about $26,000 less than the average of those peer city’s mayors, including Mayor Melvin Carter in St. Paul, which has about 120,000 fewer residents.
It’s unclear how Minneapolis ended up this way, although its legacy of having a relatively weak mayor and strong council is a likely cause.
The council directed the clerk’s office to undertake the study after voters approved a 2021 ballot question changing the city’s government structure to a “strong-mayor, weak-council” system.
Like Minneapolis, all nine cities of comparable populations have a strong mayor and city council positions described as full time.
City Council
Over the past decade, Minneapolis City Council members have voted to give their next-term selves raises averaging about 2% a year. In 2014, they made $84,362. Across the nation, some cities give their elected officials regular raises, while others don’t.
What’s clear when comparing Minneapolis to a range of cities of generally comparable size and prominence — from Boston to Denver — is that Minneapolis pays more. The closest is Denver, which has about 200,000 more people and pays its 13 council members $110,596 in raw dollars. However, when adjusted to reflect the cost of labor in Minneapolis, their salaries would be comparable to a $106,107 salary in Minneapolis. Also: Denver council members double as Denver County board members in a consolidated system that’s different from the relationship between Minneapolis and Hennepin County.
Not everything is gravy for Minneapolis council members; in Atlanta and Milwaukee, council members get a city-provided car.
Mayor
For a “strong mayor,” Frey’s paycheck isn’t so brawny.
Mayors of the following cities all earn more than Frey: Atlanta; Boston; Columbus, Ohio; Denver; Milwaukee; Seattle; Tampa, Fla.; and St. Paul. Frey’s paycheck is fatter than his counterparts’ in Pittsburgh and Omaha, Neb. He does get a city-provided car, like his peers in all those cities except Denver and St. Paul, where the mayor’s salary is $146,182.
How St. Paul does it
Comparing Minneapolis to St. Paul is fraught because St. Paul is smaller and considers its seven council members part-time employees.
They’re paid half the mayor’s annual salary.
Will Minneapolis change?
Minneapolis Clerk Casey Carl presented findings to the council’s budget committee as their last item before debating the city budget earlier this month.
It’s unclear whether the next council, which will include 12 of the 13 members of the current council, will look to change any of the compensation. All 13 council seats and the mayor will be on the ballot in 2025, and the soonest any changes could take effect would be Jan. 1, 2026.
“Thank you, Clerk Carl, for that presentation,” Budget Committee Chair Emily Koski said after the presentation, looking to her colleagues. “Are there any questions? … Is there any further discussion?”
There was none.
Amid the cacophony and chaos of the pregame preparation before a recent Minnetonka High School football game, an exceptional group of six girls is gathered together among the school’s deep and talented cheerleading and dance teams.
The cheerleaders, a national championship-winning program of 40 girls, dot the track around the football field. As the clock ticks down to kickoff and their night of choreographed routines begins, the six girls, proudly wearing Minnetonka blue T-shirts emblazoned with “Skippers Nation” and shaking shiny pom-poms, swirl around the track, bristling with excited energy.
Their circumstances are no different from any of the other cheerleaders with one notable exception: The girls on this team have special needs.
They’re members of the Minnetonka Sparklers, a squad of cheerleaders made up solely of girls with special needs.
A football game at Minnetonka High School is an elaborate production. The Skippers’ recent homecoming victory over Shakopee brought an announced crowd of 8,145. And that is just paying attendees; it doesn’t include school staffers, coaches, dance team, marching band, concession workers, media members and others going about their business attached to the game.
The Sparklers program, now in its 12th season, was the brainchild of Marcy Adams, a former Minnetonka cheerleader who initiated the program in her senior year of high school. Adams has been coach of the team since its inception, staying on through her tenure as a cheerleader at the University of Minnesota.
She started the program after experiencing the Unified Sports program at Minnetonka. The unified sports movement at high schools brings together student-athletes with cognitive or physical disabilities and athletes with no disabilities to foster relationships, understanding and compassion through athletics. Many Minnesota schools offer unified sports.
“I grew up in a household that valued students with special needs and valued inclusion,” Adams said. “I saw a need to give to those students. At Minnetonka, we have a strong Unified program, and this was a great opportunity to build relationships and offer mentorship opportunities.”
Elite runners are in a league of their own.
To get a sense of how far ahead elite runners are compared to the rest of us, the Minnesota Star Tribune took a look at how their times compare to the average marathon participant.
The 2022 Twin Cities Marathon men’s winner was Japanese competitor Yuya Yoshida, who ran the marathon in a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes and 28 seconds, for an average speed of 11.96 mph. He averaged 5 minutes and 2 seconds per mile.
That’s more than twice the speed of the average competitor across both the men’s and women’s categories, of 5.89 mph, according to race results site Mtec. The average participant finished in 4 hours, 26 minutes and 56 seconds. That comes out to an average time of 10 minutes and 11 seconds per mile.
And taking it to the most extreme, the fastest-ever marathon runner, Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya, finished the 2023 Chicago Marathon in 2 hours and 35 seconds, for an average pace of about 13 mph. Kiptum averaged 4 minutes and 36 seconds per mile.
Here is a graphic showing these differences in average marathon speed.
The school said in its lawsuit that both Hugo and May Township consider the land rural residential zoning, and that the codes identify a school as a conditional use. Hugo officials have generally supported the LCA plan, granting a building permit in 2022 that allowed LCA to invest $2.1 million into the former Withrow school for renovations.
The school said in its lawsuit that the existing septic system is failing and needs to be replaced, regardless of expansion plans.
The school said it notified neighbors of the property in 2022 and again in 2023 about its land purchase. About 50 residents in total attended those meetings, and just two expressed concerns over the issues of traffic and lights, according to the suit. The school met with the May Township board in May of 2023, and minutes from that meeting show that the board had no concerns beyond lighting at the time, according to the suit. The board asked if the school could use “down lighting” for its athletic fields and the school said it would.
In June, Hugo City Council approved a conditional use permit for the school, but the May Township board voted to extend the decision deadline to early August.
The suit says it was at a subsequent meeting in July that May Town Board Chairman John Pazlar objected to the plan for the first time, saying “the main concern, based on public comment, is to keep Town of May rural.”
The school said its plans for the May Township portion of its property had been submitted eight months prior to the July meeting, and that its plans met requirements of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
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