Ward 1 Commissioner Bo Plunk and Ward 4 Commissioner Ed Seals sort of gave back their pay raises this week.
Mayor Chuck Espy, Ward 2 Commissioner Ken Murphey and Ward 3 Commissioner Willie Turner kept theirs.
At Monday’s board meeting the city voted to allow Plunk and Seals to “donate and re-allocate” pay raises approved in June, back to city coffers to support the needs of constituents in Ward 1 and Ward 4.
Plunk will return $20,000 in salary and Seals will return $10,000. Both men are either retired or disabled and the increases they voted on would have adversely affect their pensions.
The Clarksdale Board of Mayor and Commissioners also voted to authorize the City Clerk to revise Commissioner Plunk and Commissioner Seals August and September office and travel expense checks.
At this point only the mayor has an office at City Hall and commissioners have traditionally officed out of their homes and are being compensated accordingly. City leaders routinely turn in travel vouchers of $300 or more each month.
The controversy over city pay raises began June 14 when the Mayor and Board of Commissioners voted in executive session – a direct violation of Mississippi’s Open Meeting Law – to give themselves huge pay raises. That motion was made by Plunk, seconded by Murphey and unanimously approved by the board.
The annual compensation for Mayor went from $86,421 to $122,421.92, an increase of $36,000.92. The annual compensation for a Clarksdale Commissioner went from $26,650 to $46,650, an increase of $20,000.
That prompted a petition of more than 600 names to be presented to the city and in July a motion was made to roll-back the pay raise. The thrust of the petition was the money could have been better spent on improving law enforcement, reducing crime, street repairs and infrastructure and worries about the long term tax burden after this board is gone.
A motion to amend the pay raise vote was made by Ward 2 Commissioner Ken Murphey and seconded by Ward 1 Commissioner Bo Plunk. Ward 3 Commissioner Willie Turner and Ward 4 Commissioner Ed Seals voted against the amendment prompting Mayor Chuck Espy to cast the deciding vote.
The pay raise vote also included across the board increases for city workers and department heads totally $416,400 annually.
Proponents of the pay raise pointed out Chamber Executive Jon Levingston’s salary of $165,000, Clarksdale Public Utilities Executive’s salary of $160,000 and former County Administrator Hugh Jack Stubb’s salary of $150,000 were all higher than the raise for Espy, but they were White. Alexander also pointed out when Daniel Vassel, who is Black, became County Administrator, he was paid $90,000.
Proponents again played the race card saying former White mayors Bill Luckett and Richard Webster also raised their salaries – not as much as Espy – but there was no out-cry from the White community.
Petition organizer and former Mayor John Mayo has repeatedly asked where the money for the pay raises is coming from and what will Clarksdale taxpayers get for this pay raise.
After public comment at the July meeting, Plunk railed at Mayo, threatened to resign, said he was not running again and being 100-percent disabled he would not get the raise. Plunk cursed and was gaveled down by Espy.
Murphey and Turner did not comment. Seals said the board was legal in all they have done.
Espy spoke for the next 10-minutes about how he has been thwarted by the White community on bringing a grocery store, hotel, water park and housing development to Clarksdale. He pointed to Emails in the possession of Chamber Executive Levingston and Engineer Terry Smith as backing some of those claims.
He alleged malfeasance by previous mayors.
Espy said he had saved the city millions by renegotiating city insurance, reducing police overtime and numbers and working with Levingston had brought over 300 jobs to the community.
Espy pointed to anxiety by the White community that the city and county are now led by African Americans. He said 98-percent of those who voted for him were Black.
Murphey became emotional when he made the motion to amend the budget and roll back the pay raise.
Having already voted for the pay raises in June, the process required the board to first vote to amend the pay increase and then move to the next step which would have been to set the new pay amount. With the amendment failing there was no vote on new pay raises.
