Mayor Thomas M. Menino doled out raises to 42 top city administrators yesterday ranging from 1.5 to 4.5 percent, keeping his Boston public safety chiefs at the top of the scale while also rewarding his inner circle of financial and administrative aides. The raises are retroactive to October last year, so the officials who received them will also collect lump-sum payments ranging from several hundred dollars to several thousand. Menino handed out the last round of raises to top administrators in October 2006. The largest dollar-value raises this week went to Police Commissioner Edward Davis and Fire Commissioner Roderick Fraser, who each got a $6,700 bump, pushing their annual salaries to $174,200. The mayor's Cabinet chief for information technology, William Oates, whom Menino hired from an international hotel corporation, received the second highest raise at $4,000. He will now collect $154,875 annually. ``On average, these are reasonable raises in the current economic times,'' said Lisa Signori, the mayor's Cabinet chief for administration and finance. It is the second time that the mayor used performance-based reviews to dish out the salary increases. Before 2006, Menino applied a flat percentage to everyone, regardless of performance. Top raise recipients this year included Signori, who oversees human resources, labor relations, and city finances. She received a 4.5 percent raise, boosting her annual salary to $145,500. Two others received 4.5 percent increases: Michael Kineavy, the mayor's Cabinet chief for policy and planning, and Ronald Rakow, the city assessor. Smaller raises went to officials overseeing public works, the city's Emergency Shelter Commission, and offices of new Bostonians, civil rights, and veterans' services. Dennis Royer, the mayor's Cabinet chief for public works and transportation, received only a 1.5 percent pay increase, increasing his salary to $137,025. The mayor suspended Royer for three weeks earlier this year after Royer allowed a public works employee to telecommute from Venezuela for five months. Public Works also has been the subject of repeated audits showing the department needed better management. One fiscal watchdog group praised the mayor's use of merit-based raises and said the overall cost of the pay increases - a total of $148,451 per year - is well within acceptable boundaries, despite the tough economic times. ``This is a $2.4 billion operation and these are the people who manage it,'' said Samuel R. Tyler, president of the Municipal Research Bureau, a business-funded organization. Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.
Source: The Boston Globe
