Richmond budget raises mayor’s salary from $131K to $175K

The budget proposal Richmond Mayor Danny Avula presented this week would raise his own salary from $130,725 to $175,000 per year, according to city officials.

A city news release on the budget made note of the salary bump, which officials had discussed as a possibility before Avula took office as part of a broader increase in the pay of elected officials to keep up with inflation and higher costs of living.

“The mayor’s salary has been largely fixed for two decades,” the city release said.

Last year, the City Council voted to raise its members’ salaries to $45,000, a $20,000 increase from where they were before. Council seats are considered part-time positions, but members often work much more than part-time hours to respond to constituent needs.

Pay for elected leaders can be a touchy subject, and decisions by officials to give themselves a raise are often criticized as self-serving or wasteful. That critique could have added potency in a fiscal year Avula has described as so tight that $10.6 million in cuts had to be made in order to balance the budget.

However, low salaries for many elected roles can also act as an impediment to going into public service, particularly for people with working-class backgrounds.

That wasn’t an issue for Avula, a doctor and former public health official who served in high-ranking roles in state government before going into Richmond politics. While working as Commissioner of the Department of Social Services, Avula was earning more than $250,000 a year, according to a state salary database published by The Virginian-Pilot based on 2022 data.

That suggests Avula took a substantial pay cut in order to run for mayor, as would be the case for many professionals earning salaries well into the six figures. After the city switched to a strong mayor form of government in 2005, there has been some concern a low mayoral salary could discourage qualified candidates from signing up for a chief executive job known to be demanding.

When a city commission recently reviewed Richmond’s charter to find ways to make city government work better, it recommended increasing compensation for elected officials.

“Obviously, comparison to CEO roles of comparative size and complexity in the private sector is inappropriate,” the commission said in its report. “But we believe a significant pay increase to assure that the mayor is better compensated both makes sense from an organizational perspective and would potentially increase the pool of talented individuals with executive-level experience willing to seek the office.”

The city release said the $175K salary would put the mayor in the range of what deputy directors make at City Hall but still below the $188,403 median pay for department directors. 

When the city posted its job listing for a new chief administrative officer — the highest unelected position in City Hall — the upper end of the salary range was nearly $380,000.

“If City Council adopts the proposed salary increase, the mayor would be the 61st highest paid city employee,” the release said.

Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org