Prince William supervisors keep quiet on pay hikes

With opposition mounting to a proposed pay raise for county elected officials, many on the Prince William Board of County Supervisors are staying quiet.

On Tuesday night, a public hearing on the county’s proposed fiscal 2024 budget brought out several opponents to a plan that would increase supervisor pay by 67% for the next four years and raise the board chair’s pay by 70%.

Currently, supervisor pay in Prince William is the lowest among all the county governing bodies in Northern Virginia, with supervisors earning $43,422 annually and the chair earning $49,452. The proposed budget, drafted by County Executive Chris Shorter and county staff, would raise the chair’s salary to $84,739 and supervisor pay to $74,282 starting Jan. 1 of next year, when a new board takes office.

In Fairfax County, by contrast, supervisors make $95,000 and the chair makes $100,000, although the board voted this week to raise those amounts to about $123,000 and $128,000, respectively.

Last year, Arlington’s board voted to raise the salaries for supervisors and the chair to $77,648 annually and $83,413, respectively. Loudoun pays its chair $81,1000 and supervisors $66,826.

In Prince William, supervisor salaries have gone unchanged since 2011. In its budget proposal, county staff recommended the salaries be raised to the median of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Alexandria salaries.

But several public commenters Tuesday night objected.

“The most cynical and disturbing proposition … is a 70% increase in pay for the board chair and a 67% increase for all other district supervisors,” county resident Paige Kenyon-Page told the board during Tuesday’s public hearing. “Not an increase in pay for our teachers, not to our EMTs, not to our firefighters, not even to our police force.”

County teachers, police and fire and rescue workers are, in fact, all set to see pay raises in the upcoming fiscal year, but none will receive bumps nearing the 60% mark.

“Holy moly, do you really … want to do that when you’re coming up for election?” Mary Lauren, a resident of Yates Ford Road, said Tuesday. “Why shouldn’t teachers be getting that much? If anybody gets a raise, teachers are the ones who should be getting a raise, and certainly not the board.”

The timing of the raise proposal, with all eight board seats up for election in the fall, is no coincidence. Supervisors can vote only to increase salaries for future boards, meaning pay raises can occur only every four years.

While technically considered part-time employees, supervisors in the past have spoken about the demands of the job, which include lengthy board and committee meetings, work sessions, community events and constituent service. Last year, Neabsco Supervisor Victor Angry said at a board meeting that serving on the board is a full-time job and makes taking on full-time work in the private sector impossible.

Some studies have shown that increasing elected official pay to be more competitive with the private sector can increase competition and, as a result, accountability.

But many supervisors are staying mum on the proposal. Chair Ann Wheeler and Woodbridge Supervisor Margaret Franklin, both Democrats, told InsideNoVa that they had no comment on the plan. A representative for Occoquan Supervisor Kenny Boddye said he had not taken a position on the increase.

Angry, a Democrat, and Republican Brentsville Supervisor Jeanine Lawson have said they could be open to the idea but have not committed to supporting the raises. They could not be reached for comment on this story.

So far, Coles District Supervisor Yesli Vega, a Republican, has been the only member of the board to take a firm position on the proposal, telling the Prince William Times that she opposed the raises earlier this month.

The proposal has yet to come up in a work session. Because the $1.61 billion proposed budget is a substantial document with other county matters under consideration, it’s possible the raises could go through without seeing a direct up-or-down vote.