Council didn’t have much choice on Layton’s pay

Some Wichitans will judge incoming City Manager Robert Layton’s annual salary of $185,000, plus perks and benefits, to be excessive. Vice Mayor Sue Schlapp expressed solid concerns Thursday about the size of his contract, especially because of the significant disparities between urban Wichita and the small Des Moines suburb that Layton now manages. Our editorial today argues that once the council majority voted to hire Layton, it had to offer him something approaching the average pay of managers of cities with populations of 250,000 to 500,000 ($188,000). And just last summer it had been willing to pay Pat Salerno $215,000. Layton’s rich severance package of one year’s pay was probably necessary, too, given that the 4-3 council vote to offer him the job left him wondering what he was walking into. At least the yearlong hunt is over. As we concluded, “in the year to come, let’s have no more city manager searches.”

2 Comments

  1. JWink
    Posted December 19, 2008 at 6:51 am | Permalink

    As I remember, Urbandale, Iowa is located very close to downtown Des Moines, about the distance of 21st/West Street from downtown Wichita. In that situation, Robert Layton, Urbandale city manager, was heavily involved in all the major problems affecting the Des Moines metropolitan area.

    In metropolitan areas such as Des Moines and Wichita, its normal for nearby suburbs to share various utilities such as water, sewers (on the theory that water runs downhill), sheriff’s patrol, metropolitan planning, etc. It only makes sense to share these responsibilities when possible and not re-invent the wheel in every suburb.

    My point is that after some 25 years as city manager in the Des Moines metropolitan area, Robert Layton has the experience necessary to take the reins here in Wichita.

    His biggest problem in Wichita will be to avoid the inevitable clutches of Wichita’s “Good old boy/girl network.” Beware of visitors bearing gifts!

    I suggest Robert Layton should set up a series of meetings to hear from small groups of real Wichita citizens without the divisive city council and representatives of local architects and contractors present. Purpose would be to hear the hopes and dreams of real Wichita citizens.

    A dozen of these kind of meetings wouldn’t be too many. Perhaps hold them at Century II or various Wichita churches, outside of City Hall to avoid the onerous over-zealous million dollar per year visitors entrance security system.

    Under Wichita’s old fashioned city manager form of government, the hired City Manager is in charge, with far more power than the Mayor or City Council members … perhaps with justification in Wichita. But if Mr. Layton is truly a student of municipal government, he should early-on lead a movement to study and modernize our city organization … and county organization at the same time.

    Far from being counter to his power, a successful reorganization in Wichita, albeit through agonized screams of the entrenched bureaucrats, would boost Mr. Layton to a leadership position among city/county managers across the nation.

    And remember, all who read this, Wichita does have a city election coming up in April. The people need to get involved and make changes in the city council.

  2. LonnythePlumber
    Posted December 19, 2008 at 8:53 am | Permalink

    JWink makes some good points. I would mention that although sewer water does run downhill we do have to pump it up higher every so often. Lift stations. (wink,wink). DAB meetings could serve as public forums. I was pleased to see George Kolb at several. But I feel our City manager form is a progressive management style. I also support everyone to get involved in the forums for our upcoming city council elections. Jim Skelton is up for his second term, LaVonta Williams was appointed so One is an open seat as well as District Six with Sharon Fearey being term limited out.