BRENHAM CITY MANAGER TO RECEIVE PAY INCREASE
The Brenham City Council approved a pay increase for City Manager Terry Roberts during their meeting Thursday.
The City Council renewed Roberts’ contract for one year beginning February 1, 2017. The new contract includes a 2-percent pay increase effective immediately with an additional 2-percent increase to go into effect at April 1st, 2017.
Roberts’ annual salary as of September 2015 was $153,153. Roberts has served as the City Manager of Brenham since February 2001. Prior to coming to Brenham, he served the community of El Campo as their City Manager for 10 years.
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I worked for a city that served almost 200,000 people and they had 1 city manager and 2 assistants. Why does Brenhan need 1 city manager and 3 assistants? I don’t get it! They have 200 employees where the bigger city had almost 600 employees. Something needs to change. When the city manager gets a 4-6% raise every year and the workers get 2% or less. It is just not right and should be looked into. I have worked for good city managers that would not except a raise unless all other workers received a decent raise. Brenham has workers that have to work over 30 years before even thinking about retiring because of the poor pay and lack of decent raises. I say change the whole council members and get some in there that will do the right thing.
There was a candidate forum last night for certain political positions in the local area that are up for election. Unfortunately, the city mayor and council positions have not had an election in several years. When is the next election for the city positions?
It is not even on their city of Brenham website. This non-transparent form of local government and the constant raises for the city manager. And the growing number of high paid positions at city hall, like having three assistant city managers, for a city our size, just looks bad to the tax payers.
This is just ANOTHER Blatant slap in the face of all the blue collar city of Brenham employees and the taxpaying citizens of Brenham. City property taxes went up again, County taxes went up and and this ONE person gets consistent raises. Something is horribly wrong with the City of Brenham Government. Please remember to vote and remove the current city council members and stop this wasteful spending.
you said it… I would love to take a poll on here to know how many people here get 6% raises every year. When business is down, you dont get a raise. But this council and manager have their easy fix. Go up on appraisals or go up on rate. Ever wondered how they have time to do comparative appraisals to make sure that they are comparing apples to apples.. THEY DONT DO IT…. My roof on 2 buildings is pealing up and I have a hole in the roof of my house, yet some jackleg built a $400K home and all of a sudden my house is comparable. I looked at my past appraisal values and in 10 years my house has tripled in value from what I paid. Total nonsense.
These people need to stop the high paid management raises until they show they can cut spending and reduce taxes.
That is a false statement. You don’t even read the story right and put in the correct information.
Time to be the lone voice of dissent. I suggest all those folks attacking Mr. Roberts really look at what he manages and then compare his pay to other city managers who manage not only the workings of the city which include many large departments, but also in the case of Brenham a complete utility grid which includes electrical, something many cities do not manage. You will find his salary is in line or maybe low compared to the amount of responsibility he has. It is a tough job.
Has no one bothered to check what we pay our six figure school superintendent, it is also a lot, where is your outrage for that? Maybe I am alone but my city taxes are quite small compared with my school taxes which are huge. You don’t like three assistant city managers, go look at all the assistant superintendents, and central office positions that have been created in the last few years. Go examine all the specialists and curriculum coaches that have been hired and have proven to be none value added in the eyes of most teachers. I suggest that many of you are barking up the wrong tree, if property taxes are bothering you, go check out the school system.
What if….. We came together as a community, every single citizen in this town, and just decide to flat out refuse to fork over our hard earned money in taxes until we come to a conclusion on what fair taxation should be. What ever happened to “no taxation without representation”?
Folks that are born with a silver spoon in their mouth do not and cannot possibly understand struggles in the lives of the people behind the majority of comments on this news article. The top blue collar wage in this county is $35,000 for a single job. Many must commute to find better wages if they want to continue living here. Stay at home Moms are few and far between, as raising a family takes two incomes and help from family members to buy a home. Add rising property taxes and insurance to the monthly mortgage and it is impossible for many. Ask these families if they want another sports complex, or less taxation. They need money for healthcare, quality food for their table, higher education, and maybe, a rare family vacation. Maybe the welcome signs at the county line need to say, ” welcome to Washington County, Future resort area for the wealthy”.
No wonder my property taxes have continually skyrocketed every year despite the minimal improvements I’ve made.
First off there is no need for a city manager and 3 assistants… Second, the salary is WAY to high for this area for someone that does NOTHING.. Citizens of Brenham need to attend the council meetings and voice their feelings!!! Complaining on this comment forum is not good enough. There is 13000 plus citizens in Brenham, their voice needs to be heard!! This wasteful spending has to be stopped soon.
At this same city council meeting, the city mayor, and city manager, and the city council, they all also approved over $150,000 for three new lawnmowers, that artical is on the radio website too. So that just means the city manager only gets paid the same amount as about three lawnmowers, since his salary is only around $160.000 per year. Just don’t think about the extras expense it costs taxpayers for vacation, where he gets paid for not working, and the retirement benefits and the social security; that is probably only another ten percent or so. Bottom line is that everything just costs more money these days in Brenham, and we the taxpayers, just have to accept that as citizens in Brenham, that we just have to pay mower and mower in taxes. Next time you see the mayor, a city council person,the city manager, one of the three assistants. Just tell them thanks and that the grass is beautiful in the parks and all four of the city managers deserve more money, if for nothing else, especially for that.
All yall need to get off the couch and make a sign that says “through the bums out ” or we want a independent investigation into the city council! All of us meet on Saturday morning and picket in front of the court house, and call a houston tv channel…get noticed on the street by some of the out of town shoppers. You have to make people aware, and uneasy to get the point across. Learn that from the nightly news!
He gets a pay raise for having done what??????????? Create and open jobs for friends and family? City workers get the shaft and he lives high on the hog…. This whole city council needs to go and the whole police department needs a change. The firing of one that should not have been fired is so wrong in so many ways….. How can this man and city council members sleep at night knowing he makes over 150K a year and has how many assistants….
Wait a second at that wage what is the city’s need for an assistant city manger for and what’s the pay scale on that on top of his
THREE. THREE assistant city managers!
Angry Taxpayer you forgot to mention the new 7 + million dollar police station and the 2.5 million dollar dog house to go with the new station. Also the police chiefs that have come and gone under this mans watch which have cost tax payers a bundle. The old station was to bad to house the police dept. , but now houses a medical clinic. Go figure !! The city manager position is not an elected office, but the city council is. I say throw the bums out !!
Just another forum of government wasting your money
Who makes the suggestion for such pay raises and who makes the final decision? Just curious to know!
Sad!! I agree with ridiculous. I work in the oil and gas industry and know MANY that had pay decreases and quite drastic ones. Making $153,000 and a 4% pay increase must be nice!!
A 4% pay increase on top of over $153K?? The City Council must think we live in Houston!
This is an affront to all the taxpayers in this city. Council needs to be replaced in its entirety. Any business or family knows this elementary fact, when your income decreases, you cut back expenses. Not our coucil, they raise wages and build more and bigger entertainment complexes at Firemans park, which in turn increases upkeep, insurance, and more man hours to maintain. A library more suited to a larger city than Brenham ( growth will slow down to a trickle due to low wages, high property taxes). But maybe the majority of council members suffer from affluenza and have ZERO knowledge of average or low income ( we have many) persons financial struggles. Acquistion of more industrial park too, for what? More low wage controlled jobs? Wake up citizens!
Are you kidding me?!?! Not only do I feel bad for my fellow city taxpayers, but I feel bad for the hard-working city employees who continue to see Roberts get large pay increases while they get the shaft. Enough is enough! It’s time for a change in the make-up of the city council. We need to vote more fiscally responsible people into these positions.
SERIOUSLY!!! Greed gets u no where!! He should be ashamed of himself for accepting a 4% raise when other city employees only get a 2% cost of living!! Sounds to me like the entire City Council who approved this raise need to be replaced we need to remember this come election time!! Enough is enough we taxpayers don’t get a raise every year at our job but yet we are expected to pay higher taxes that these people raised! I said it before and I will say it again, he championed a tax increase for what he called debt but in all reality he was making sure there was money in the budget for his raise this is a horrible good ole boy system!!!!
Excellent points, FD. This is a travesty.
I was told that there 2% was not a real number
Makes a really good salary and then gets 4 more percent?? Really?? I need to go to work for the City of Brenham I guess…..I work for the state and have been here almost ten years. In those ten years, I have gotten 2 raises and they were to cover the increase in insurance costs. So, I make just a fraction of what I started out making ten years ago. What has he done that constitutes a raise AGAIN??
I agree. I work for the State also and there are no pay raises. Some people at the State are even working 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet and then we are expected to keep dishing out our HARD earned money for taxes so the City, County, and School District can all get their raises and everything else they think they deserve. They need to learn how to live like we have to. You just always don’t get what you want – you cut where you can and make do with what you have!
I am a widow living in the country outside of Brenham and have had my property appraised several times in the almost 20 years that we have lived here. I have never had any children or grand children go to the schools in Brenham and ever though being over 65 my taxes were suppose to be frozen they still have increased because the property values have gone up. The weird part is that I am paying more school taxes than I am for the insurance on my whole property. Plus I am on a fixed income and our social security benefits have not gone up until this year they said it will go up 0.03%. Whoopee, and Roberts gets a 4% pay increase for managing the city’s money? I think there is something really rotten in the city of Brenham.