Divisive Maui pay hikes: Should a mayor earn more than a governor?
Bigger paychecks approved for dozens of top Maui county officials have become a flashpoint in the cost of living wars, with county workers claiming they’re long overdue for higher compensation and critics arguing that today’s jittery economic landscape makes large pay raises feel like tone-deaf splurges.
Even after the county Salary Commission dialed back new salaries for some of the county’s highest earners last week, some residents said the wages fly in the face of reality, especially in a county still recovering from the Aug. 8, 2023 wildfire that razed most of the historic town of Lahaina, leaving thousands homeless.
Without the raises, proponents say, the county risks losing experienced leadership. Recruitment and retention issues have created more than 600 vacant positions across all departments, impeding the functioning of the political system that shapes the daily lives of Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi residents. It’s become difficult for the County Council to approve new projects knowing there’s a dire shortage of staff to see them through, Council Chairwoman Alice Lee said.
“We just don’t pay enough,” said Lee, who received a 23% pay increase to $106,367 while salaries for the other eight council members rose to $101,302, a 26% increase.
The most generous pay boost approved by the commission goes to Mayor Richard Bissen, whose paycheck will jump 54% to $245,000 from $159,578. When the new salaries automatically take effect July 1, Bissen will become the most handsomely paid mayor in the state, earning more than even the governor. Maui, the third most populous county in the state, will also possess Hawaiʻi’s highest paid county clerk, prosecutor and corporation counsel.
“Nobody I know is getting that percentage of increase in their income this year,” Maui resident Barbara Wallace said in written public testimony to the Salary Commission. “Don’t you care about others? Come on.”
Although the salaries themselves account for just a fraction of a percent of the county’s $1.7 billion budget, they far outpace average wages on Maui, where the median household income dropped from $98,699 in 2022 to $83,691 in 2023, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. At the same time, the number of residents paying more than $3,000 a month for rent doubled between 2019 and 2023.
Maui’s rising cost of living and the challenges faced by county department directors and deputies in the aftermath of the 2023 wildfires factored into the commission’s decision-making process. Commissioners also said recently approved 15% pay raises for Gov. Josh Green and other top state officials informed their approval of the increases and that they hoped the new rates would help scout and hold on to top talent.
The state Salary Commission last month bumped up Green’s salary to $217,908 effective July 1. A series of smaller 4% raises and an 8% raise are scheduled to follow in 2027, for a total pay increase for the state’s top job of 39% over six years.
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who oversees a county with almost a million residents — more than six times that of Maui County — earns $217,392.
“It seems to me that these are egregious and that the mayor of Maui shouldn’t be making more than Blangiardi, for instance, or the governor. How do you compare his job to theirs?” said Will Weinstein, a former money manager who for decades taught an ethics course at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa. “Instinctively … this doesn’t feel or smell right to me.”
The size of some of the increases also raised the eyebrows of Dick Mayer, a retired University of Hawai‘i Maui College economics professor. But he said it’s important to assess the raises over a span of time to determine whether they’re overdone or overdue.
In the last five years, pay has increased 5% for the mayor, 17% for the managing director and 17% for the deputy managing director.
“It’s easy to complain but what would a comparable person get who’s running a hotel or the Bank of Hawaiʻi?” Mayer said. “Many people in the corporate world are making millions so I think our society should be much more outraged by what we’re paying executives in the private sector.”
On Friday, the Salary Commission rolled back its planned pay raises for Managing Director Josiah Nishita and Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade after making the unusual decision last month to adjust their salaries higher than the mayor.
The commission had originally signaled it would raise the managing director’s earnings to $325,104 from $172,154, a leap of more than 89%. But the panel changed its mind, bringing down his new salary to $240,000. The commission also dropped the deputy managing director salary to $216,000 from $292,594. In the same stroke, commissioners raised the mayor’s salary by nearly $34,000.
The higher salaries for Nishita and Wade had initially been calculated to reflect pay earned by managing directors and deputy managing directors in U.S. mainland cities, where those positions effectively run the county and the mayor is more of a figurehead. That’s not how Maui County operates, however.
With the adjustments, Nishita and Wade will no longer earn more than Bissen, a shift that better reflects the demands of their duties, commissioners said.
The commission agreed to give 38% raises to Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Martin, who will earn $239,043, and County Clerk Moana Lutey, who will earn $239,043, making them the top paid county prosecutor and county clerk in the state. The commission boosted earnings for the police and fire chief by 25%, to $230,000.
For three consecutive years the Maui Police Commission had advocated for sizable salary hikes for Police Chief John Pelletier. His pay remained stagnant. As a result, the police chief, who isn’t eligible for overtime pay, earns less than some subordinate officers when overtime is factored in, according to Maui Police Commission Chair Stacey Moniz.
Salaries for the 40 directors, deputies and elected officials who received pay raises currently account for less than half of a percent of the county’s overall budget, according to Salary Commission Acting Chair Grant Nakama. Even with the new pay rates, these salaries will remain less than 1% of the overall budget.
Funding for the increases will come from the county General Fund, which includes property tax revenues, said county spokeswoman Lila Lawrence. Unspent funds from the current $1.7 million budget and new revenues will also likely help pay for the raises, Lee said.
The council has only just begun its budget deliberations but Lee said she’d like to see the body propose an even leaner spending plan than the $1.5 billion budget Bissen proposed for fiscal year 2026.
Council members in particular deserve higher pay, Lee said, because they’re entrusted with steering a $1.7 billion county budget, as well as $1.6 billion in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funding appropriated to Maui County by U.S. Congress to support recovery from the 2023 wildfires.
Council posts are at-large positions, so members are accountable to all Maui voters — 165,000 residents across three islands.
“I think that’s a tremendous amount of responsibility,” Lee said. “I don’t think the pay increases are excessive under the circumstances.”
All nine volunteer members of the Salary Commission are appointed by the mayor and approved by the council.
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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.