St. Cloud's next mayor will hold down two jobs. What's the mayoral salary?

It’s a rare sight when St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis doesn't host a weekly town hall or attend a large community event. When city voters elect a new mayor come Nov. 5, these regular instances may become less likely, as the two finalists will have a packed schedule.

Mayoral hopefuls and current Councilmembers Jake Anderson and Mike Conway told the St. Cloud Times that if elected, they plan to keep their current full-time jobs. Anderson works in information technology for Stearns County while Conway works as a solutions consultant for Wolters Kluwer.

Regardless of which one of them becomes mayor, change could be coming in how city business gets done. That's because many of the past mayors have run their own businesses, whether it was a driving school like Kleis or a private law practice like former Mayor John Ellenbecker, which gave them the flexibility to address city matters as they came up.

Kleis told the St. Cloud Times the mayor’s hourly workload depends on current events. The community engagement-heavy mayor said some weeks he works more than 60 hours, with calls coming in at all times of day and night. He compared the job of a mayor to that of a chief executive officer at a private sector company.

Plus, the city's charter leaves it to each mayor's interpretation on how much time they need to put into their jobs.

"I believe it requires a significant amount of time if you're really going to serve. It requires seven days a week. It requires lots of time spent with a lot of different people," Kleis said. "Think about a CEO of a company ... (with a) $122 million budget and more than 460 employees. You have over 71,000 residents that live in your community. You've got 40 square miles. You've got a significant amount of buildings and vehicles to oversee, so that's pretty large if it were a business."

Finding the right balance between work, personal life

However, Kleis said it’s possible for the successful candidate to manage city operations while still keeping their current position, it’s just a matter of juggling both jobs with personal matters. Kleis himself found ways to adjust, taking calls while on the go and checking emails while on the treadmill.

“I can't speak for somebody else, I just know you have a life to balance,” Kleis said. "You have to balance your family. You have to balance that other job or business you may have.”

The sitting mayor also said each elected official has their own approach they bring to the job.

“If you are a tremendous manager, (working) 30 hours a week, (or) whatever it may be, you can do that, but you just need to make sure that you're available and present and accessible,” Kleis said. “And that’s the most time-consuming part of the role, making sure you connect and communicate with folks. But also, availability is an important piece, and that may differ and vary from day to day, from week to week, from month to month.”

Both candidates, who don’t have school-aged children, said they plan to continue Kleis’ commitment to community engagement. However, the two said weekly town hall occurrences are unlikely.

Despite this, the candidates aren’t too worried about the change, and told the St. Cloud Times how they plan to adjust, both for themselves and city staff.

How Anderson, Conway would lead St. Cloud

Anderson and Conway said they'd approach the job in a similar way, at least in terms of time management. Both said they plan on giving staff members the supervised space to handle situations as they see best while consulting and informing the mayor in the process.

Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, both candidates said. They expressed that staff members are best educated and equipped to handle department-specific issues, some of which the mayor might not know of or how to proceed.

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“You have professionals in those roles, and I don't know how to run a public works department,” Anderson said. “I don't know how to run planning and zoning (projects), and I don't want to get in the business of trying to dictate to people how to do their jobs from a professional capacity. As mayor, I’d set a direction of where we’d want to go, and check in on that, while tasking the administrator with moving toward those goals.”

Conway has a similar sentiment and said he’d rely on department heads to make informed decisions.

“All our department heads are experts in what they do, and I would be a fool to not rely on their expertise when it comes to the matters of the city,” Conway said. “That's what they're there for. They get paid full-time, and that's all they do. So as the mayor, my job would be to listen to their recommendations and look to their wisdom.”

How much does St. Cloud pays its mayor?

And while the mayor of St. Cloud gets paid a full-time grade salary of $50,000 a year with a $420 monthly car allowance, both candidates said the compensation played a significant factor when deciding if they should keep their current jobs.

They said they have financial obligations and are currently paid more than the mayoral salary, which makes it difficult for either of them to accept a pay cut.

“I also have real-world things I have to pay attention to,” Conway said. “I have commitments that my wife and I have committed to financially, so if I were to leave my current position and solely be the mayor, it would be financially challenging.”

Still, Anderson and Conway said being mayor is more about public service than the dollar amount the position pays.

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“Let's be honest, yes,” Anderson said when asked if he’d be more enticed to commit to only being mayor if the salary was higher. “If you want people to put in more effort, we need to be compensated for that appropriately. I'm not arguing either that the mayor's pay is too high or too low, etc., but I do think that plays a factor. I think that's why a lot of times you see retired folks doing it. You see folks that may not be employed doing it.”

St. Cloud’s mayor's salary is in line with how other Minnesota communities, by population size, compensate their leaders, according to public record data.

How does the mayor's salary compare to other Minnesota cities?

Compared to the rest of Minnesota's salaries, St. Cloud's $50,000 is within the realm of possibilities. The salaries range from about $25,000 a year in Mankato with a population of just over 45,000 to nearly $85,000 in Rochester, home to about 122,000 residents, to more than $140,000 in Minneapolis, the state's most populated city, with more than 425,000 people.

But when considering St. Cloud's position of being one of Minnesota's four strong-mayor municipalities, which means the mayor makes the budget and oversees day-to-day operations, the $50,000 salary is below the average. St. Cloud pays its mayor the least of the strong-mayor cities — with the other three being Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth. By comparison, Duluth, home to about 87,000 residents, pays $97,500, which is the second-lowest salary of the four cities.

St. Cloud State University School of Public Affairs Dean King Banaian said the lower salary may discourage people who may be qualified for the position from running for office. He said that while a position like mayor is primarily compensated in the reward of public service, taking a hefty pay cut isn’t an option for some.

"Public service is wonderful, and there are people that would aspire to do it and want that, which is great," Banaian said. "But there are some people who might have taken that job and might have chosen to run for that position at a higher wage (and they aren't) prepared (or) in a financial position to sacrifice that income for a four-year period."

Despite the $50,000 salary, St. Cloud's primary election had a crowded field of six mayoral candidates, which Kleis points to as an indicator of the salary not being prohibitive in fielding candidates.

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Anderson and Conway are hopeful they will take over City Hall with the $50,000 salary. The two have already started making arrangements that would allow them to continue with their current employers while serving as mayor. However, this preparation doesn't squash flexibility concerns in its entirety.

"Business owners (are) able to maintain their business through hiring someone else to do the day-to-day management of it, so (the candidates' current positions) have different characteristics," Banaian said.

"Both the city council members running for office are employees of other businesses that they don't own. One of them works for the county, the other works for a private business. They don't have that kind of option."

Corey Schmidt covers politics and courts for the St. Cloud Times. He can be reached at cschmidt@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: St. Cloud candidates will have two jobs due to low mayor pay