Email from Prairie Village mayor leads to dispute with some council members

An email that Prairie Village Mayor Laura Wassmer sent to some members of the City Council last week — expressing concerns over discussions surrounding the 2017 budget — led to accusations Monday that she was attempting to quell dissent.

In the email, Wassmer wrote that the morale of city staff was suffering following the council’s July 5 meeting, at which time some council members raised questions about city salaries and a pay raise pool proposed in the budget.

“They are disheartened by difficult and negative/distrusting council members,” she wrote on July 14.

She noted that the city continues to operate well and maintains its AAA bond rating. The council, the mayor said, should be grateful.

“Instead, we have council members questioning proposed salary increases insinuating that they are paid too much (we are an extremely demanding and time consuming city council – not to mention having residents with extremely high expectations), doing ‘bad’ math and stating that our budget is too high and not being managed properly,” she wrote.

She warned that some staff members, including City Administrator Quinn Bennion, could leave if the situation didn’t improve.

“I’m getting nervous we are going to lose them if we don’t start supporting them,” she wrote. “I need to ask for your support at our next council meeting – and the ones to follow. They need you to voice your support and to shut down some of this nonsense.”

The email went to council members Ted Odell, Sheila Myers, Courtney McFadden, Steve Noll, Ashley Weaver, Brooke Morehead and Terrance Gallagher.

On Monday, some of the council members not on the delivery list expressed anger at the email, which they called “divisive.”

Councilman Dan Runion characterized the email as “retaliatory bullying.” He said he was only trying to get details on how the spending plan was developed, such as how budget writers had come up with a 3.25 percent merit pay raise pool and if it was based solely on gross compensation.

He had also expressed concern that overall spending on employee salaries and benefits had continued to rise in recent years outpacing inflation, and “yet I am being accused of attacking staff.

“It is my responsibility as a council member to ensure taxpayer money is being spent appropriately,” he said. “I am greatly concerned that the mayor is interfering with that process.”

Runion also said that discussing the budget with a majority of council members outside of public view hurt the city’s attempts at transparent governing.

“I am concerned about the mayor’s email chilling debate and discussion and, quite frankly, cheating open meetings rules leading to questionable council votes,” he said, later adding, “I’ve paused to wonder how many times this has happened before.”

Wassmer denied that her email was attempting to influence how the council members voted.

Instead, she said she was simply trying to communicate the deflation she said employees were expressing to her over the types of questions being asked about salaries and raises. She said it has been a “very difficult year” as staff has dealt with double-digit employee turnover since 2013 with some departments, such as police, being short-handed.

“I just want you to think about the kinds of questions you ask, how they’re asked and the bigger picture involved in those questions and how those might be interpreted by a staff that’s feeling really overworked right now,” she said. “I respect the questions about the budget. But when it comes to questioning whether our employees deserve a raise, I think that is really disrespectful given all we ask them to do.”

She acknowledged to Runion that not sending the email to him “perhaps was a misjudgment” and “if I felt like you would have been receptive to my email, I would have included you on it.”

Runion responded, “I guess we’ll never know.”

Councilwoman Jori Nelson told Wassmer that she was “really disappointed that you don’t give council the credit for just requesting information” and said some comments in the email were “unacceptable.”

Councilman Andrew Wang said he supported giving deserving employees a raise and that his questions about the budget shouldn’t be interpreted to mean he doesn’t support staff.

But he noted that small cities like Prairie Village typically have trouble holding on to top workers who may leave for bigger opportunities and paychecks elsewhere.

“You have to expect some people to go, and we need to learn how to cope with that in maybe more creative ways than just banging them on the head with a stack of cash,” Wang said.

Ultimately, the council members voted unanimously to give the 2017 budget their preliminary approval with a final vote scheduled for Aug. 1.

This story was originally published July 19, 2016 at 11:57 AM with the headline "Email from Prairie Village mayor leads to dispute with some council members."