BLYTHEWOOD – During Town Council’s first 2024 budget workshop last month, Town Administrator Carroll Williamson announced that Mayor Sloan Griffin is requesting the following be included in the 2024 budget:
- A 30 percent salary increase for council members
- A 3.2 percent cost of living and a 3 percent merit raise for the Town’s fulltime employees
- An extra $500 to each fulltime employee for such health and welfare items as gym memberships, gym shoes, and child care. They would not be required to spend the $500 with Blythewood businesses
- $10,000 public safety grants for the Richland County Sheriff’s office and the county’s EMS to be used for such things as buying new furniture for those facilities that are located in Blythewood
Individual council members currently receive $7,200 a year in salary. A 30 percent increase would raise council salaries to $9,360. It would raise the mayor’s salary from the current $10,800 per year to $14,040 per year.
Councilman Rich McKenrick asked the mayor to elaborate on his request for an increase in council salaries.
“A 20 percent raise was given to council in 2019, and we always give increases to staff. We can’t put ourselves on that sliding increase,” Griffin said. “It’s a very minute amount when I talk to several folks. Just trying to keep up with where we’re going.
“Just trying to keep up with where we’re going,” Griffin said. “The burden is going to get very heavy on us as we continue to grow. Scout’s here. Just making sure we’re keeping in line with other municipalities of like size and growth.
McKenrick pointed out that if this council votes an increase that it would not take effect until after the next election, according to the South Carolina Municipal Association.
“So it would not be part of this budget year,” he said. “We can vote to do that, but it would be the next budget year that you would put it in the budget.”
McKenrick agreed with Griffin, however, that it is imperative that council vote now to pass a raise for itself.
“This is the time to do it, to bring us in line with other municipalities. In light of Scout, our workload, population, and budget size,” he said, “those are the things I looked at on the salary survey. If we don’t do it [vote to raise council’s and mayor’s salaries] now, then we are compounding it moving forward, and then our council is going to sit here and say we need to raise council salaries by 75 percent. I 100 percent agree that we should get behind it and push the cart to figure it out.”
According to the Municipal Association website, Blythewood’s council and mayor salaries are currently in line or higher than other South Carolina’s towns its size that are listed on the MASC website. Ft. Mill, Greenwood and other larger towns have much larger budgets but have council and mayor salaries comparable to Blythewood’s.
