Wewahitchka commissioners vote to increase their pay in upcoming fiscal year
The Wewahitchka Board of City Commissioners unanimously voted to raise their pay from about $100 per month to $500 per month in the upcoming fiscal year.
The vote came after City Clerk Rachel Jackson presented research finding that the pay provided to the Wewahitchka commissioners was significantly lower than that in many nearby municipalities.
“During the budget meeting, we had talked about adjusting your salaries, and Britany and I did some calling around just because what y’all make is relatively low,” she said. “We did call around to a bunch of different cities. Some of them we didn’t get a call back from, but the ones that we did, I put onto a spreadsheet so y’all could take a look at that and see what they’re making in comparison to what y’all make.”
The monthly commissioner salaries from several cities were read aloud from the spreadsheet by Mayor Philip Gaskin, including Blountstown ($500), Bristol ($50), Carrabelle ($480), and Port St. Joe ($1,250).
Members of the public in attendance spoke in support of the commissioners’ pay raise. The measure passed unanimously.
The county’s elected officials are also expected to get a raise in the upcoming fiscal year, though the exact amount has not yet been finalized in the county budget due to lacking information about the salary amounts set by the state.
“In a very rough calculation, you will get a little bit of a raise,” said County Budget Director Sherry Herring to the county commissioners at the county’s Sept. 18 budget meeting. “The county commissioners (pay) went up right around $2,000. The constitutional officers, except for the sheriff, went up about $7,000. And the sheriff went up around $9,000.”
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.