The Little Rock Board of Directors will discuss at an agenda meeting today the proposed ordinance to increase Mayor Mark Stodola’s pay from $160,000, where it has been fixed since 2008, to $179,208. This follows a 75 percent pay increase for city directors, from $12,000 to $21,000 a year counting an unitemized expense allowance. It also follows City Attorney Tom Carpenter’s legal analysis that Stodola’s pay arguably must be raised to keep it comparable to that of City Manager Bruce Moore and other city officials as state law seems to require.
The ordinance also provides:
(c) The benefit package of the Mayor shall include life insurance, health insurance as available to City employees, retirement, access to deferred income accounts, a car allowance equal to that of the City Manager, and any other benefits made available to any employee of the City.
A memorandum with the ordinance from City Attorney Tom Carpenter says the ordinance will also provide the mayor with an increase in his car allowance to equalize that paid the city manager. The ordinance would make it match exactly, as with pay. The mayor’s car allowance would go from $500 a month to $600 to match Moore’s $600. Each has a $1 million city-provided term life insurance as well as defined contribution retirement plans. In the retirement plan, the city contributes 12.5 percent of each man’s pay and they put in 7 percent for a tax-deferred account that is taxable on withdrawal.