SedonaEye.com columnist Eddie S. Maddock on Sedona city employees salary and additional compensation packages budgeted for 2024.
Sedona AZ – WHAT’S IN STORE FOR 2024?
Boldly and sincerely stated in a video at the opening of City Council meetings is Sedona’s Vision:
“To be a city that is constantly vigilant over the preservation of its natural beauty, scenic vistas, pristine environment and cultural heritage. To be a city that retains its small-town character and creates its manmade improvements in strict harmony with nature. To be a city that is animated by the arts, and lives with a spirit of volunteerism to help achieve our common goals. To be a city that offers equal opportunities for all and fosters a sense of community. To be a city that welcomes and accommodates all of its visitors and future residents with a spirit of fellowship. To be a city that retains and enhances a strong and vital economy which preserves existing lifestyles without exploiting the natural beauty. To be a city that lives up to the challenge of proper stewardship of one of the earth’s great treasures.”
Before proceeding with what may or may not be a surprise to Sedona residents via a Freedom of Information Act, “Douglas Ducey in 2021 was employed in Arizona Governor’s Office and had annual salary of $95,000 according to public records. This salary is 20% higher than average and 36% higher than median salary in Arizona Governor’s Office.” (Phoenix has a population of 1.6 million and pays its City Manager $314,999 annually.)
With the city of Sedona gearing up to prepare its fiscal year 2024 budget, a review of the 2023 budget shows that average budgeted compensation for a city employee is presently $106,174. (Population of Sedona is 9,684 – a decrease from previous years.)
Here is what we pay Sedona city employees:
City Manager Karen Osburn: $183,000. (No change from 2022.)
Deputy City Manager Joanne Keene: $161,850. (A 7.9% increase from 2022.)
City Attorney Kurt Christianson: $155,235. (A 7% increase from 2022.)
Assistant City Manager/Director of Public Works J. Andy Dickey: $155,147. (A 7% increase from 2022.)
Director of Financial Services Cherie White: $153,422. (An 8.4% increase from 2022.)
Chief of Police Stephanie Foley: $135,200. (Foley replaced Charles Husted, who retired last fall; the chief position’s salary is an overall 2% decrease from 2022.)
Magistrate Judge Paul Schlegel: $125,008. (No change from 2022.)
Director of Community Development Steve Mertes: $125,000. (No change from 2022.)
Criminal Prosecutor William Kunisch: $120,443. (An 8% increase from 2022.)
Director of Wastewater Roxanne Holland: $119,061. (A 9.6% increase from 2022.)
Information Technology Manager Chuck Hardy: $117,830. (A 6.8% increase from 2022.)
Assistant Director of Public Works Sandra Phillips: $114,660. (A 4% increase from 2022.)
Human Resources Manager Brenda Tammarine: $114,354. (A 7.6% increase from 2022.)
Transit Administrator Robert Weber: $110,850. (A 10.9% increase from 2022.)
Engineering Supervisor Kurtis Harris: $103,000. (Position vacant in 2022.)
Police Lts. Karl Waak and Scott Martin: $103,000. (A 13.2% increase from 2022. Martin is a new hire, replacing the retiring Sgt. Michael Dominguez.)
Network Engineer, unspecified staff: $102,615. (A 5.6% increase from 2022.)
System Administrator, unspecified staff: $102,614. (A 5.6% increase from 2022.)
GIS Analyst, unspecified staff: $102,014. (A 5% increase from 2022.)
Additional benefits over and above wages include, but are not limited to health, dental, and vision insurance coverage plus countless hours of paid time-off; as offered in ads seeking even more City of Sedona employees.
And this, dear readers, is active even during the uncertainty of a predicted economic recession next year.
Impressive?
Suggestion: Reread the “Vision Statement” and then decide.
Kevin on Shark Tank said Biden admin nationalized banks with the FDIC change. Picking up the failed banks tab is us and not getting interest on savings and checking is next for us because we’ll be “collectively helping” each other out by allowing banks to “loan to the poor.” Million times BS. Sedona balance the budget and get out of future debt deals now. TGIF losers.
U b da moronic convention founder?
Making it all up?
Sure sound like you dont follow banking very much? When the interest rates were so low banks were giving as little as 0.1%….Balance budget?…All we have done for 40 years is give huge tax breaks to the most wealthy and corporations….How about they carry the water, not us regular people! JFC You people need to follow thing as they happen….These are not sports, this is stuff that effects the 99%!
(as of today Wells Fargo interest on a savings account is 0.15%)
@@Sam interest rates are closing in on 7% and Wells Fargo is paying a half a percent more than when we didn’t have double digit inflation and Wells Fargo interest earned was 1%? Hold on. You’ve just made the case for getting Trump back in charge of the government finances and I doubt you realize that because you’re a financial genius, eh?
Buy Bitcoins
A city is like a family and like successful families, the foundation matters for building generational wealth. Racking up crippling future debt is not how you raise families or cities up.
Explain why our police make less than the pencil pushers and talking heads? THIS IS RIDICULOUS. Change it.
You joking? Wealthy pays all the expenses of the government in this country bysure they provide the jobs salaries and services and benefits and like Musk the intelligence that the government won’t because it makes them have to work instead of rubber stamp others work. Like here in Sedona at city hall and chamber that between them doesn’t have an original good idea or outcome but by god they collect fat checks enabled by the wealth taxes. Just sayin.
2008
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Temporarily Increases Basic FDIC Insurance Coverage from $100,000 to $250,000 Per Depositor.
LMAO with government use of word temporary
Yeh crypto first
Oh I’m sorry Keith.. that you have a problem paying the one half penny tax..
must be peace and quiet in Sedona somewhere
It’s about time we stood up for ourselves @@@sam because I’ve worked hard and saved and planned and when I went to retire that plan didn’t work out and had to go to work on two more jobs in the next seven years to earn enough to retire at 70 and know that for thirty years my wife and I would manage living frugally but happily in Sedona. I’ve no regrets, but if one of us goes first then the other will go south to Phoenix. Young people have more job opportunities than I had a few years ago and they need to move or relocate where work is like our generations all did. People here better appreciate hard work and volunteering to help others and minimal taxes. I don’t believe in paying taxes for things people can do for themselves better.
Time for an understanding of the role Chamber has played in oversizing the economy that brings poor quality tourism and economic development damage to our beautiful city.
It has been and remains our opinions the entire movement for incorporation was ridiculous from the get-go. The BS about needing police, a bunch of crap! No one seems to recall Sedona had a Coconino County Sheriff’s substation right uptown! Available 24-7 FYI Lionel.
Dorks believing the crap about how wonderful incorporation would be were stupid and many admitted it after the fact and guess what? THEY MOVED AWAY FROM INCORPORATED SEDONA and some to the VOC.
It’s been and remains a snatch and grab for opportunists, primarily working the regional chamber of commerce that never was and never will be a legitimate branch of Sedona city government. We congratulate the city council members refusing to acquiesce to the demands of the special interest organization having no rightful authority to achieve the overwhelming control they’ve had and maintained for too many years – not to mention the millions of municipal funds for which the chamber have never appropriately been held accountable for accurately reporting how that money was spent.
If they were to claim destination marketing then for certain it’s been a waste of money since that has clearly never amounted to anything other than more day trippers!
Be gone, C of C, from Sedona City Government. Stand on your own two feet. And for heaven’s sake, city council, do NOT maintain the chamber visitor’s center uptown as officially being that of the city. It’s another blatant lie so quit funding it!!
Pay your taxes and shut up.
So Sedona not funding the C of C but you all can’t stop pontificating. Go look at all the wildflowers.
It’s soooo amusing to read remarks made by people who appear to be offended by those who dare to “pontificate?”
Maybe those professional(?) critics might consider taking time to follow their own suggestion? “Go look at all the wildflowers” and smell the roses along the way. That way you will avoid being bored by spending even one second on Sedona Eye!
In the meantime how about giving a shout out for the termination of the City/Chamber saga! YIPPEE~~
they discovered other unknown galaxies last month just for you, suggest Elon transport as can’t count on Biden getting it up
Don’t put people down when they have good criticisms and you can’t handle it.
The left-wing media and politicians’ latest attacks on conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are nothing new, Newsmax host Rob Schmitt said Tuesday night, telling his audience: “It’s Brett Kavanaugh all over again.”
This time, Schmitt said on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” the target is Thomas, “who’s committed the unthinkable crime of having a rich friend for the past 25 years. Can you imagine?”
The media coverage of the story that Thomas has not reported millions of dollars worth of vacations and private jet and boat trips “has been exactly what you would expect from the same press who refused to report the irrefutable evidence of influence peddling from the sitting president of the United States,” Schmitt said.
Thomas has said he had asked about reporting rules and was told at the time they were not necessary, but he will now amend his reports to show the gifts from his longtime friend, Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. Thomas said Crow had no pending cases before the court. Crow said his gifts were no attempt to influence Thomas’ court decisions.
Even liberal “Daily Show” guest host Jordan Klepper admitted in a piece critical of Thomas and Crow on Monday night that Crow giving gifts to Thomas would not serve any purpose in changing his vote since he already is the most conservative voice on the court.
The latest hit is Thomas used a “nonexistent” company in his reporting, something Schmitt called a misspelling of his wife’s company and an innocent mistake that many people make.
Also reported was Crow’s purchase of a home owned by Thomas that his mother still lives in rent-free.
“It’s a case of the headline is far superior to the story,” Schmitt said. “It is clickbait, a tactic rags like ProPublica” use, and “once you open the story, you find that the house in question was Thomas’ childhood home, bought by Harlan Crow for a very, very meager $133,000 home Clarence Thomas had inherited only one-third of and only received one-third of the meager proceeds.
“What a scandal! Far worse than taking millions from the Chinese government.”
Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, former members of President Donald Trump’s legal team, agreed with Schmitt.
“They have been attacking Clarence Thomas for more than 30 years,” diGenova said. “He has withstood all of it, and during that period of time, he did his job … on that court. What he did was he developed a complete body of law, which is now at the center of the conservative court.”
Toensing added, “the left fears that there’s going to be a racial discrimination case this term where the conservatives are going to be in the majority.
“And also, Clarence has opined many times about taking away malice for public figures,” she continued. “But let me just tell you one personal thing about Clarence and Ginni Thomas: They don’t write stories about them going out in their camper and sitting around a campfire and talking to everyday people and not telling them what he does.”
Carrie Severino, head of the Judicial Crisis Network, who once clerked for Thomas, told Schmitt, “This does not have anything really to do with ethics. It has to do with attacking the most prominent and influential intellectual leader of the conservative and originalist wing of the court.
“They want to delegitimize his rulings, and they want to try to basically make his life miserable — as they have been trying to do ever since his appointment in 1990,” Severino concluded. “So, this is no surprise.”
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
Find NEWSMAX in over 100 million U.S. homes via cable/streaming
Watch NEWSMAX TV online
Download the FREE NEWSMAX App on Your Smartphone
Such as??? How about offering an example????? (of a good criticism that is)
@@marlene @@samme @@tracyetal
Sedonans need to get their ducks in a row at city hall and both counties as not much in future debts will be coming due.
Judge Thomas is a black leader whites can’t control, and if you speak against him and not against justices like dimwit white Kagan (not sure how she/he identifies as a pronoun), you’re a racist. Justice Thomas has served brilliantly for 30 years and God willing he’ll serve 30 plus more. STFU woke privileged whites and Democrat racists like AOC who brought this charge against Justice Thomas and she’s even dumber than Kagan.
when did doing right become optional
OK I’m weighing in http://www.SedonaEye.com because it’s wrong to attack Clarence Thomas. PERIOD. Don’t be doing it in private or public places in Sedona, he does his job well, not influenced by anybody’s money, a lifetime job that he works at every day and consistently, consistently held the same political views since college, unlike AOC and her immoral pals in Congress sipping cocktails in Florida and Hollywood who marry their brother or verbalize racist opinions about blacks or who give million dollar pay to boyfriends from campaign fundraiser coffers. AOC needs to demand Hunter and others be charged and stop being the white liberal pawn of Schumer Jeffries Biden and let’s get to the bottom of the hundreds of shell companies putting money in President Biden’s banks every day that was proven in Congressional testimony this past few weeks. Time for truth and it’s being hidden on false attacks on vetted for life Supreme Court Justices whose work product is an open legal chapter of nine chapter book. If the President is corrupt, spit it out, we can deal with it. (BTW that NYC Bragg should face disciplinary charges for failure to properly do his job and for tweaking no evidence on behalf of his benefactors IMO and is a black Democrat in need of bias and money source examination.)
Friends, SedonaEye Eddie Maddock gives us a chance to vent and listen and share and learn and appreciate the chance for growth in this desert land of local media. (SedonaEye could cover city meetings.)
Clear skies Sedona w/no chance of rain, fun reading this unusual site over pancakes at (deleted by editor) thanks to colleague .Shout out (deleted by editor) at (deleted by editor) for Jerome (deleted by editor) before heading back, Daily e-mail (deleted by editor) phone (deleted by editor)
@stephan ditto
Sedona council fails time and again to prevent the spread of unnecessary traffic issues and that doesn’t mean we need more roads or transit systems!!!!!
“We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.”
ELBERT HUBBARD
Best one “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
Any relief from tourists on horizon yet?
(SedonaEye could cover city meetings.) @Stephen in Sedona
Have you checked into the “archives” option at the bottom of the Home Page??
I enjoy early hours before it gets busier and can commune with nature. Not feeding wildlife is common sense and shouldn’t require education . Where do these people grow up that they don’t have basic understandings and educations?
Sedona’s mountains need 2build ski slopes 4rec
AGAIN buy Bitcoins
Will peruse, thanks.
Our concerns stem from the national scene that trickles down into each and every state, county, city & town across this country.
Having wide open borders, we are ALL being subjected for invasion by the unknown. Criminals, drug cartels, child molesters, etc. and, of course, the unfortunate folks who are sincerely and desperately attempting to seek a better lifehard working, the honest people who actually are deserving. But the bottom line has been the foundation of this country and that is to establish rules that must be obeyed.
Our administration continues to break our national immigration law on a daily basis. It’s like a runaway train. Even if new people are elected the ongoing damage is unknown and all of us are in peril. Serious situation that for some reason is mostly being ignored. Weird?
How can anyone possible predict what’s in store for 2024?
Is this a scenario taken into consideration here in Sedona by our own elected politicians? Is it really any different than making plans for evacuation in the event of a major wild fire? Just a point to ponder – maybe?
One term of Joe Biden is and was bad enough. Now, he wants to go for a second! God help this country because the Democrats have held us hostage with their anti American fiscal and international policies that get us into wars and kill us off with pandemics.
California is doing Income based bills and what’s that? Your electric and utility bill will be based on your salary. You will provide the utility companies with proof of your salary, and you will pay what they consider your “fair” share. FOOLS. No way. First what I make is my business, second how and what I spend my money on is my business, and I’m sick of these under educated people deciding what I’m to pay. FIRE THEM NOW.
The government knows how much you make the county file tax returns.. that’s what your type does…. get yourself all hyped up over a made up problem keep getting angry sheep. That’s exactly what they want you to do..
Here’s my take on elections: Why did President delay announcing except to make sure his money backers and political shills were prepared to pay him for his run and after funding? What “gifts” and “positions” were offered up and prepaid for – for the next term? What corporations and individuals were given promises not to be broken? Why did S. Rice work at the White House behind the scenes until
She didn’t? When did Pelosi get her walking papers? When did rich man Jeffries become an Uncle Tom and why is his name being rumored for VP with his racist and xenophobic background? Better get Oprah or Trump will win.
Sedona elections do the same But different names and different games.
96% of Americans have responded & the woke media is fuming trying to stir up the 4% for protests for news cycles. Should English be made the official language of the U.S. and nearly every educated and uneducated person in-country knows what a stupid question it is and why. American English is globally recognized as a linguistic beauty of inclusiveness and diversity. Go home psycho media.
@charliesacramento. Key to today’s troubles in Cali is poor statewide education system, it’s abysmal and it’s disgusting.
Where did you hear that on Fox News or Newsmax?!!!! They want you angry sheepie!!!!
Be aware Sedona schools tried to teach my kids they were worse off because of other kids and they lost friends then we moved our kids out to private schools.
Bad schools and bad teachers and bad administration and board in that school district.
let’s change for the better
I believe we need more good-paying jobs.
I believe our children need a better education.
I believe in putting America first.
I believe we need to drain the swamp and eradicate corruption.
I believe we need common sense and honesty in Washington.
Donate to Team Kennedy.
Time for Joe to Go.
https://youtube.com/shorts/fpZymIq2cFY?feature=share
I want an effing 800 a month to go from Arizona to Italy maybe Dubai maybe New Zealand for my MOVEMENT gig because UN owes US taxpayers billions for money it stole from America. I can escape the trash the UN is helping invade my neighborhood. Could it be Airbnb VRBO local politicians local realtors local landlords and others figured out how to get their share by using stop & flop houses for illegals with these credit cards?????? Aren’t you sick of being gamed by liberals and conservatives????