CLEARWATER - The Clearwater City Council rewarded their two direct employees, City Manager Bill Horne and City Attorney Pam Akin, with 4 percent salary increases during the regular City Council meeting last Thursday.
Akin will now earn $143,043, a figure that is lower than the City Attorney average of the several Florida cities used for a comparison based on population, including Tallahassee, Hollywood, Miami Beach and Sunrise. But Akin's new salary is 7.6 percent higher than the average for cities that Clearwater defines as its public sector labor market of similar size, structure and demographics, including St Petersburg, Tallahassee, Gainesville and Lakeland.
Horne will earn $154,964, a salary that also is less than the average of the Managers of Florida cities with comparable populations, including Tallahassee, Hollywood, Miami Beach, Sunrise, Cape Coral, Gainesville and Port St. Lucie. But looking only at Managers of cities comprising what Clearwater sees at its public sector labor market, Horne's new salary exceeds the average by 9.7 percent. Those cities include Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Tallahassee, Gainesville, Lakeland and Sarasota, several of which have a strong Mayor form of government.