Hartford Treasurer Kathleen Palm Devine received a $46,800 pay raise last week — her first in eight years that puts her salary in line with other city department heads.
The veteran city employee had not received a salary increase since 2002. However, before 2002, the city’s treasurer received pay hikes similar to the ones given to other top city department heads.
The raise boosts her annual pay to $156,800 from about $110,000.
According to a resolution approved last week by the city council, the timing for Devine’s pay raise is set by state law. She is eligible for a pay raise either at the beginning or midway into her term of office.
Devine was reelected to three, two-year terms and now is half way into her first four-year term, overseeing a staff of about two dozen who manage the city’s $1 billion pension fund. She also administers about $85 million a year in payments to city retirees, oversees the city’s $550 million annual cash flow and is a co-issuer of all city bonds.
The city council acknowledged the discrepancy in pay between Devine and other city department heads.
In the council’s resolution, it stated that the city treasurer’s salary “under the City Pay Plan has been set in the same range as that of other officials serving as city department heads in the top tier, including the finance director, fire chief, director of management and budget, director of health and human services, and director of public works.”
Devine’s $6,030.77 biweekly paycheck is similar to that of two other city employees — Police Chief Daryl K. Roberts and Finance Director Christopher J. Wolf — who also earn about $156,800 annually.
Reached for comment last week, Devine said she was grateful the city council recognized the pay disparity and took steps to close it.
With her raise, Devine joins other city department heads who earn more than the state’s top elected officials, including the governor, who earns $150,000 and the state’s constitutional officers — Treasurer Denise Nappier, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Comptroller Nancy Wyman and Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele — each earning $110,000 annually.
