Clancy challenging court ruling

LYNN – City councilors could be talking about raising Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy’s pay even as former Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. challenges a court ruling potentially making him responsible for paying the city back $660,000 in “overdue wages.”Council President Daniel Cahill on Wednesday said he supports increasing Kennedy’s salary over the current $82,500 a year amount she has taken as mayor and said councilors will probably discuss a potential raise at an April meeting.”She’s underpaid. We intend to discuss the matter and intend to notify the public of the discussion. I think it is high time to pay the mayor a salary reflective of the duties he or she is responsible for. I support bringing the mayor’s salary back to the range former mayors have been paid as well as what mayors in like-sized cities earn,” Cahill said.Clancy earned $113,000 to $145,000 a year between 2002 and 2010 when he served as mayor. He argued, according to the Superior Court decision, that the 1986 and 1988 ordinances tied salary payment methods for city department heads to practices governing pay for one of the city employee unions and noted “that it was the city’s past practice to treat the mayor as a department head?”But Justice Jane Haggerty ruled in her decision that a 1998 council ordinance – not two prior ordinances – dictated mayoral salary sizes.”It is hereby declared that the city mayor’s compensation is set at $82,500 per annum, that Clancy is not entitled to receive additional compensation above that amount, and that the city is entitled to reimbursement of the amount paid to Clancy above $82,500,” wrote Haggerty.Clancy and his Salem attorney, John Andrews, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday, but Kennedy, in an interview last Friday, said she is participating in “talks to see what, if anything, needs to be done on overpayments.”Cahill said the 11 councilors’ salaries will shrink, effective in April, from roughly $14,000 a year to under $13,000 annually, to reflect language from a 1985 city ordinance tying council salaries to 15 percent of the mayor’s salary.In her decision, Haggerty stated that the 1998 ordinance “…explicitly repealed any prior inconsistent ordinances, including those dealing with mayoral compensation.” But Cahill said the 1998 change only applied to the mayor’s salary without striking down the 15 percent tie-in between council and mayoral pay.The City Charter – the document outlining basic functions of the mayor’s office, City Council and School Committee – gives the council authority to “by ordinance” establish the mayor’s salary.