Compensation for mayor, council features layered history

By Craig Howard Splash Contributing Editor

When Cris Kaminskas was first appointed to the Liberty Lake City Council in January 2010, she was unaware that those who served on the governing board were compensated for their time.

As she delved into the immense workload of an elected official, Kaminskas calculated that the $300 a month salary amounted to around half of minimum wage for the hours she put in.

“I remember it was just about enough to make the car payment,” Kaminskas said. “The money is not why I serve. I do it because I love it.”

Now mayor, Kaminskas receives $2,500 a month. Council members make $787.50 each month following a 5-percent cost-of-living raise that went into effect Jan. 1. Another change that took place when the calendar turned to 2023 is the frequency of paychecks. Council, mayor and staff are now paid on the 10th and 25th each month as opposed to the previous distribution on the last business day of the month.

Last November, Finance Director Kyle Dixon oversaw a council workshop that provided an overview of the city’s Salary Commission and their approach to mayor and council compensation. Dixon referred to Ordinance 176, Section 5 which summarizes the commission’s goal “to base salaries of elected officials on realistic standards so that elected officials may be paid according to the duties of their office and so that citizens of the highest quality may be attracted to public service.”

The commission studied cities with strong mayor/council forms of government similar to Liberty Lake that also featured populations between 10,000 and 30,000. The results showed the average salary for mayor at $2,322 a month while the median council member salary rang in at $820 a month.

Mark Saba, one of three members of the Salary Commission along with Joan Wissmann and Jim Baumker, said Dixon’s help in gathering relevant market data has been the key to the group coming to a clear and fair recommendation.

“It’s given us good tools to dive into the situation so the city can keep up with the rest of their peers in the state of Washington,” Saba said.

Kaminskas said in the 13 years she’s been at City Hall, salary issues have not come up around the dais.

“I’ve never really heard anyone on council complain about compensation,” she said.

State law outlines two ways to determine compensation for elected officials – the first involves an ordinance passed by the sitting council to set salaries, yet the new rates only go into effect after the terms of the council members who voted on the change expire. The second, and more common, method is to leave the task up to an appointed Salary Commission which makes a binding recommendation for any changes to pay.

Kaminskas recalls the “binding” aspect of the process causing a stir in 2010 when the city was experiencing financial challenges and the commission came forward with a wage hike proposal for the 2011 budget.

“I remember the council was like, ‘Wait, we don’t want an increase,’” Kaminskas said. “We’re cutting hours and laying people off and this comes to the table. We talked about donating it back.”

Eventually, a technicality in the commission’s voting process voided the recommendation, “to the delight of all of us,” Kaminskas said.

In 2019, the Salary Commission reconvened after a layoff of several years. The focus of the group centered on pay levels for the mayor and council that had not changed since 2014. Compensation had stalled at $400 for council member and $1,250 for mayor.

“It had been awhile since the commission had met, let alone recommended any increases,” Wissmann recalls. “We were very far behind.”

Eventually, the commission recommended an increase in the mayor’s salary to $2,250 per month and raising the monthly council compensation to $720.

That same year, the city of Spokane Valley addressed their pay for elected officials for the first time in 13 years. The result was a 93-percent hike in council salary, from $750 to $1,415 and an 82-percent increase in mayor’s pay from $975 to $1,775. Unlike Liberty Lake, the mayor and council members in Spokane Valley also receive insurance benefits.

Wissmann, who brings over 20 years of experience in compensation, benefits and HR work to her current role as Salary Commission chair, said she looked into the group after becoming a new resident of Liberty Lake.

“I was looking for ways I could help the town,” she said.

Saba took over for Holly Woodruff on the commission when she transitioned to City Council. Like Wissman, Saba said volunteering his time “is a way to be involved in the city.” He also serves on the Community Engagement Commission and is one of the catalysts for Winter Glow.

As a member of the inaugural City Council following incorporation in 2001, Judi Owens can recall a time when compensation around the dais stood at $20 a meeting. With the minimum requirement of two meetings per month that meant council members making $40 monthly even though the demands and workload far exceeded the baseline schedule.

“Being compensated was not our focus,” said Owens who recalls weekly council meetings often starting at 7 p.m. and going until 1 a.m. as the governing board discussed and passed a myriad of ordinances that would serve as the foundation of the new city.

“For a lot of meetings, we didn’t really adjourn, we just recessed,” Owens said.

Owens said the channeling of local tax dollars toward more concentrated services in areas like law enforcement and street maintenance translated into benefits for all residents, including council members.

“It wasn’t completely selfless on our part,” Owens said. “We weren’t getting the level of services we needed before incorporation but that was about to change.”

The first pay shift for council members rose the monthly wage to $250.

“That was after we’d been making 10 cents an hour or so,” Owens said. “It was still pretty insignificant for the hours we were putting in but none of us were in it for the money.”

Former Mayor Steve Peterson remembers a time in the early days of Liberty Lake over 20 years ago when the monthly wage for mayor checked in at $150.

“It’s all about love of community,” said Peterson. “At my best back then, I was making a dollar an hour, maybe 50 cents. Then, you go to an attorney and they’re getting $150 an hour. It wasn’t about the salary. If you love your community, that’s what you’re working for.”

New Officers and Technology for LLPD

By Ashley Humbird Splash contributor

The Liberty Lake Police Department is home to twenty officers including Police Chief Damon Simmons and Lieutenant Darin Morgan who are committed to the protection of the community. With their proactive policing, the city of Liberty Lake saw a reduction in overall crime over the past year.

The department began with the incorporation of the city in 2001 and has since gone under transformation during that time. The department began with just two officers patrolling the streets of Liberty Lake.

Chief Simmons was appointed to the position of Chief on December 15, 2020 and is currently the second officer to hold that title for the Liberty Lake Police Department. When Chief Simmons took on the role, the department structure was different. The chief at the time, was the only administrative rank, but with the growth that Liberty Lake is experiencing, an additional administrative rank was needed for the chain of command.

The 2022 year saw many changes to the department, including an additional two officer positions and a Lieutenant position created. “We looked at the level of service that we provide to our community as well as looking at officer safety,” Chief Simmons shares the information he gathered when deciding to create the new officer positions, “For example, on the night shift, it wasn’t uncommon for us to just have one officer on duty working; that’s an officer safety issue. Not only is that an officer safety issue, but it’s hard to keep up with the call hold while providing the level of service to the community that it deserves with just one officer on duty.”

Proactive police work is an important part of the department and one that is difficult to accomplish when not enough officers are on duty. “We conduct traffic stops. We contact suspicious people. We conduct surveillance on our problem areas. We do all these things that give us the ability to head off crime before it happens.” Chief Simmons has brought on technology since his appointment to help with the proactive police work.

One of the major technology advancements that Chief Simmons has implemented over the past year to help with the proactive work is the use of the license plate reading FLOCK system. Chief Simmons considers Liberty Lake a ‘Port of Entry’ location since they lie at the boarder of Idaho and Washington. The department sees different and unique situation otherwise small precincts would not typically see. The agency sees people passing through and can stop people with warrants that might not be a resident of the city, but might just be passing through quickly.

Using the FLOCK system allows the officers to track cars based on license plate numbers in real time. For example, a homicide suspect wanted for arrest in Tacoma was identified travelling through Liberty Lake, then headed back west on I-90. The Liberty Lake agency was able to alert Spokane Police about the suspects direction of travel and the suspect was arrested traveling through Airway Heights.

The FLOCK system uses a series of photos of rear license plates taken from nineteen cameras located throughout Liberty Lake and uploads them to a data base instantly. If a license plate number has been flagged, officers will get a notification on their phone seconds after the corresponding photo is taken. The camera detects and photographs around 25,000 vehicles daily and stores them for 30 days. During that time the license plates can be used to find stolen vehicles, abductions, hit and run suspects, helping officers identify cars when missing person alerts are sent out, are just a few of the ways the system helps officers.

In addition to bringing in additional technology to assist officers, Chief Simmons has tripled the training budget since 2021. Trainings that were hosted in 2022 at the Liberty Lake department included a Basic Incident Response to Digital Evidence, an FBI LEEDA course, and a Field Training Officer course. “It helps our ability to serve the public with; responding to calls, conducting investigations, conducting follow-up investigations, responding to active shooters, and other critical incidences.” Says Chief Simmons.

Chief Simmons has had a drive for police work since he was young. “I’m from Waco, Texas and my neighbor growing up was a retired Waco officer told me when I was a kid that I was going to grow up to be a cop. And that stuck in my head my entire childhood. I would watch him come out of his house with all his gear on and I just marveled at that. I thought I want to do that.” He joined the Air Force in 1996 as Security Police and served almost four years before leaving due to an injury. He then went on to become an officer for a few years with the Great Falls police department in Montana before making a lateral move to the Spokane County Sheriff’s office in 2003. He worked in different departments within the agency until he was appointed Chief of the Liberty Lake Police Department in 2020.

“This is a great department. The culture and climate here is awesome. I wake up every morning and I have no problems coming to work. Sometimes you would think there’s a comedy show here because we can have so many laughs. It’s a great place to come to work. We all go to lunch together, sit down together, and the guys here have great off duty relationships.” Says Chief Simmons.

The Liberty Lake Police Department is very active in the community. Over the past year they supported many community events which included: SkyFast at Fairchild Air Force Base, Cruising with the Cops, Touch a Truck events, Escort for the Traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall, and more.

Last year saw a reduction of traffic incidents that the Liberty Lake Police Department responded to. Collisions decreased from 93 to 65. DUIs within the city reduced from 12 to 10. Traffic infractions drastically reduced to a three year low of 135 versus 330 infractions recoded in 2021 and 604 infractions in 2020.

Overall, the statistics for the department decreased during 2022, but remaining vigilant is always important. “We do live in a community that is safe. We do live in a community with a sense of safety. But we can’t let that skew our selfawareness. A lot of the crimes that we see in Liberty Lake occur because of a break down of self-awareness at the individual level. So, I ask the citizens, don’t leave valuable items such as purses, computers, tablets, and cell phones in your vehicles overnight. I stress and plead that people stop leaving their firearms in their vehicles overnight. And lock your doors to your vehicles and garages at night. If you are going to be out of town, turn on some lights.” Chief Simmons warns Liberty Lake residents. “Because we live in an outstanding and safe community, sometimes people forgot that there are individuals that come into our community and exploit that feeling of safety.”

Awards were announced at the beginning of 2023 to recognize officers that helped keep the department running smoothly and showed professionalism and positivity throughout the year. This year was the first year that the Lieutenants award was given and the honor was bestowed upon Officer Derek Arnold. Lieutenant Morgan recognized Officer Arnold’s service. Here is a brief excerpt from his commendation letter. “There are several different responsibilities that get distributed to each of our officers to keep the organization running smoothly. MPO Arnold took on a number of those responsibilities over this past year. He took on the role of the department armor after completing the Glock armorer course and continued to add to that responsibility by becoming the pistol instructor for the department. MPO Arnold continued by becoming the primary weapons instructor for all our weapon systems. He became the lead weapons instructor for the department. MPO Arnold is always willing to take on more responsibility and ensures each one is done with pride and professionalism.” Shares Lieutenant Morgan.

An additional award, Sergeant Award, was presented to Master Police Officer Stephanie Olivas by Sergeants Bogenreif and Isaac. Here is a brief excerpt of her commendation letter. “Officer Olivas represents this department in a positive and professional manner both on and off duty. She recently made herself available during her days off to assist officers with an only Spanish speaking suspect. She has become a certified Car Seat Technician and will be holding classes in the future, to ensure that Liberty Lake residents are installing Car Seats correctly. This in turn, will create a safer commute for the children of Liberty Lake and the surrounding area. Officer Olivas has allowed us to adjust her shift to accommodate for the agency’s needs, making a safer work environment