Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz had a room full of northwest Ohio business executives laughing at a morning meeting in December, just after he was elected but before he was sworn into office.

But the then-mayor-elect wasn’t trying to be funny. He was discussing the difficulty he was experiencing recruiting a chief of staff because of the salary cap for that position, which is set by city council at $119,129 annually.

“I remember one of them said, ‘What are you offering?’” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said. “The room guffawed. It was a rumbling guffaw of laughter. They just looked at each other and couldn’t believe what the salaries were.”

It isn’t the first time in recent years a Toledo mayor has cited compensation as a roadblock to hiring top candidates for key positions in city government, and Mayor Kapszukiewicz said he believes it won’t be the last.

“Taxpayers of Toledo are understandably interested in making sure that their tax money is being spent wisely, and there is always a reticence to increase the taxpayer-supported salary of any government employee. I get that,” he said. “But going through this process truly helped me understand that we are missing out on talent because the wages we pay are utterly noncompetitive.”

EDITORIAL: City must pay for talent

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Prompted by the mayor’s request for a one-time exception to the rule — city council will allow Katy Crosby, Toledo’s new chief of staff, to be paid $125,000 annually — some city council members say they want to revisit the salaries of key positions in an effort to be more competitive in the job market.

The caps were last raised by council action in 2014, and a survey of current salaries paid in Akron, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Dayton city governments shows Toledo still falls on the low end. For instance, Toledo’s law director is paid $104,000 annually while the law directors in those four other cities make $138,000-$184,000.

Toledo’s acting finance director is paid $94,813, though the cap is $119,129. Dayton’s fiance chief is paid about $131,000; Akron’s makes about $138,000; Cincinnati’s is paid about $142,500; and in Columbus the salary is about $158,400.

The Kapszukiewicz administration is on the hunt for directors of finance, economic development, and information technology, and city council agreed to pay Toledo-based Waverly Partners LLC up to $75,000 to help with recruitment. But many council members are concerned the firm will run into the same problem the mayor did in his search for chief of staff and will end up asking them to make another exception on salary.

“It makes me wonder if perhaps this is an opportunity for this body to start evaluating pay as we move forward,” councilman Nick Komives said at a council meeting this month. “As we continue to attempt to be the best city that we can be, the reality is that we get what we pay for, and we need to ensure that we’re competitive, that we can attract the right people, and sometimes it means an increase in pay.”

Council members Yvonne Harper, Cecelia Adams, and Peter Ujvagi all have said salaries for executive positions need to be addressed.

Deputy Chief of Staff Abby Arnold said the administration is “very interested” in sitting down with council members to discuss possible changes to the city’s pay ranges, but no formal discussions have been scheduled.

Councilman Rob Ludeman said he is in favor of revisiting the pay, but he wants to make sure his fellow council members take into account the city’s health care plan, which he considers superior to plans offered in the private sector.

“Those are tremendous benefits for anybody who comes into our system, and I think that needs to be factored into any discussions regarding any increases in pay scales,” he said.

Mrs. Arnold agreed the city offers good benefits, but she said take-home pay is often a bigger factor for many job candidates.

“When you’ve got people getting out of college and the debt that they’re coming out with, benefits are great, but they’re not going to pay a student loan off,” she said.

Councilman Gary Johnson said his preference would be to determine salaries for executive-level employees on a case-by-case basis as city council did with Ms. Crosby. He said he doesn’t want to see the city pass up talent “because we’re afraid of a few dollars,” but he doesn’t believe the salary caps need to be increased across the board.

“We shouldn’t turn around and pay somebody the top scale simply because it’s available,” he said.

As city council continues to discuss salaries, it’s also working with the Kapszukiewicz administration to pass a balanced budget by the end of March. Councilman Tom Waniewski said the 2018 budget looks healthy because income tax revenues are projected to be strong, but he said he doesn’t want to see that revenue spent “wastefully.”

The proposed 2018 spending plan projects income tax revenues will total $178 million, higher than any time in the last decade.

“Let’s look at that money with a conservative eye, a penny-pinching eye, in my opinion,” Mr. Waniewski told his fellow council members.

He added he would be in favor of examining the city’s pay ranges for top positions, but only if that includes a concerted effort to hire some employees who fall toward the bottom of the range, too. Hiring everyone at the top scale could be dangerous for the budget, he said.

“If we’re merely going to move up the cap for the sake of paying people more money, I think there needs to be an overall look at the ranges, and are we able to bring in a young person who wants to cut his teeth?” he said. “It’s not charity. We’re paying them well. We’re paying them good benefits.”

Mayor Kapszukiewicz can propose adjustments to the city’s spending plan submitted to city council by former mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson in November, and one area he’d like to spend more money is on his own staff.

Ms. Hicks-Hudson spent just over $580,000 on wages for her office in 2017, though that figure could change once it’s audited. In 2016, she spent about $540,000.

Mr. Kapszukiewicz added a new position to his office and has proposed spending about $809,000 on salaries for his 2018 staff. It would be the most spent on salaries for the mayor’s office since 2007, when Carty Finkbeiner allocated about $887,500 for his staff.

Mr. Kapszukiewicz said he believes in “a more robust mayor’s office” than the city has had in the past, and bringing his staff count to 10 by hiring a legislative director to help craft policy is something he won’t compromise on.

“We knew going into this that we were probably going to come in at a higher dollar amount, but we think we are adding value to city operations,” he said. “We’re going to be a better city because of it, and we will also balance our budget because we’re going to save money elsewhere.”

Mr. Kapszukiewicz, who is paid $122,400 annually, said the city is already set to save about $107,000 annually after suspending cell phone and analog phone accounts that were not being used. He also would like to consolidate several city and county departments and partner with Metroparks Toledo as cost-saving measures.

Mr. Waniewski said he wants city council to keep an eye on the budget for the mayor’s office, but he added Mr. Kapszukiewicz has “surrounded himself with some very competent people.” He said it is “refreshing” to have an administration work hand-in-hand with council members to finalize the city’s spending plan.

One area where the mayor’s office will temporarily save money is a soon-to-be vacant mayor’s assistant position. Lucy Frank, who interned with mayors D. Michael Collins and Ms. Hicks-Hudson and was hired full-time by Mr. Kapszukiewicz, is leaving at the end of February to work for the city of Columbus.

Mayor Kapszukiewicz said he plans to fill the position but that it likely will sit vacant for several months. He said it will save the city some money, but in the long run it’s another example of a valued employee moving on to a higher salary.

“One of the reasons that we’re losing Lucy is because she is a talented young woman, and Columbus is going to pay her more,” he said.

Contact Sarah Elms at selms@theblade.com, 419-724-6103, or on Twitter @BySarahElms.

First Published February 18, 2018, 6:06 a.m.