Denver Mayor Michael Hancock has made a point of returning recent salary bumps, but he says he will end that practice — and will accept a new 10.3 percent raise — if elected to a second term in May.
But first, he has some catching up to do to live up to his 2011 salary pledge.
The Denver Post discovered while reviewing records provided by the city that, in 2013, Hancock indeed began returning the first part of a phased-in 6.6 percent increase in the mayor’s salary.
But in July, when the remainder of the increase kicked in, Hancock’s automatic “salary donation” in each pay period wasn’t adjusted upward to reflect the change.
Since then, he’s been returning just half of the value of the total raise, or $147.85 per paycheck after taxes.
His spokeswoman called the error an oversight. Press secretary Amber Miller said Thursday that Hancock would begin making catch-up donations to the city. By December, she said, he will make good on his promise.
Hancock made his giveback pledge in 2011, when he was one of three City Council members running for mayor.
He voted for the 6.6 percent increase in all Denver elected officials’ pay, deferred until mid-2013 and mid-2014. Half of the amount of each position’s raise — $9,610 for the mayor, increasing the office’s salary to $155,211 — took effect each year.
If Hancock returns the full value of that raise, as he says he intends to do, his effective salary will have been $145,601 during his entire first term.
But the mayor, who still faces no major challenger for a second term, would be in for a big boost in base salary if he wins the May 5 election.
He says he plans to accept the full mayoral salary, minus the remaining amount he still must return from the last year.
“We’ll just baseline to the new salary,” Hancock said during an interview last week, before The Post questioned his salary records. “I deferred it for two years. Now I’ve got two kids in college and one on the way (to college), so I’ve got to be more prudent with my personal situation as well.”
Last week, the council voted 9-4 to approve a 10.3 percent increase in salaries for all elected officials, again phased in over two years, starting when the election winners begin their terms.
For the mayor, the salary increases to $163,204 in July and to $171,197 in July 2016.
Hancock signed the ordinance the next morning before a rally launching his re-election campaign. Five people have filed initial papers to run against him, but he faces no well-funded opponent.
Hancock said a charter requirement that mandates the setting of elected official salaries every four years puts council members in a tough spot, but he considered the new raises reasonable when compared with inflation over four years.
Council member salaries will increase in July to $87,623 and in mid-2016 to $91,915 (the president is paid roughly $11,000 more). The auditor and the clerk and recorder each will make $141,148 in July and $148,061 in mid-2016.
Three of the four council members who voted against the increases are term-limited. The fourth, Councilwoman Susan Shepherd from northwest Denver, also had campaigned against the last round of raises in 2011 and signed failed mayoral candidate Carol Boigon’s petition to reject them.
But Shepherd confirmed that she accepted the 2013 and 2014 salary increases. She said she donates $3,000 to $5,000 a year to nonprofits in her district but that giving wasn’t meant specifically to offset the raises. Those amounts still would be less than the size of the raises.
Jon Murray: 303-954-1405, jmurray@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JonMurray