While Decatur struggles with a shrinking population and a multimillion-dollar budget deficit, local leaders have approved a substantial pay raise for the city manager.

The Decatur City Council voted March 19 to approve a 6 percent salary increase for City Manager Tim Gleason, boosting his annual salary to $176,500 from $169,100 – and pushing it further above that of nearly every state governor. While Gleason’s previous salary surpassed that of 40 state governors, his new salary will be higher than that of 45 governors when the raise goes into effect March 23. The vote to approve Gleason’s new contract was unanimous, with one member absent.

According to the Council of State Governments, or CSG, the national average for a governor’s salary was roughly $137,400 in 2016, the most recent year for which the CSG provides data. Decatur City Council’s newly approved raise edges the city manager’s salary above the average governor’s by more than 28 percent.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income in Macon County’s largest city is just over $40,700.

“I feel like we got a bargain with him, with all he brings to the table,” Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe said, according to the Herald & Review, underscoring that Joliet City Manager David Hales collects a salary of $215,000.

Decatur has experienced a particularly tough case study in Illinois’ population decline, emerging as the Land of Lincoln’s fastest-shrinking city since 2010. From 2010-2016, the Soy City’s population declined by 4.5 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Decatur’s losses marked the biggest drop on a percentage basis among Illinois cities with populations over 50,000. Joliet grew by a meager 0.6 percent over the same time.

Years of population loss have undermined the city’s tax base. This has been reflected in the drying up of sales tax revenues, funds upon which the city has long relied. City officials, however, have pursued other tax hikes in attempts to recover the difference. These efforts have included increasing the city’s property tax, hotel tax and utility tax rates, as well as introducing a citywide motor fuel tax in April 2016.

But in a county where the median property tax bill is $2,004, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation – higher than most counties in Illinois – those tax hikes are prone to drive out lifelong Decatur taxpayers.

Councilman Bill Faber, who was absent from the March 19 vote, said had he been present, he’d have opposed the salary increase, according to the Herald & Review.

“Given our town’s deficit budget, no raise should be offered to the manager,” he told the Herald & Review. In December 2017, Decatur City Council passed a budget for 2018 that included a $3.2 million deficit. “Our community groups should not be asked to sacrifice so that the manager can have a raise. He makes plenty.”

Decatur’s potential for growth and dynamism is exemplified by its rich past as a manufacturing hub. But the formula for Decatur’s revitalization begins with controlling its spending, not straining its overtaxed residents.

Taxpayers should pressure state lawmakers to adopt reforms that allow cities like Decatur to be more competitive. This would include relaxing unfunded mandates that Springfield imposes on municipalities. Reforming pensions, workers’ compensation and prevailing wage laws would curtail many of the costly expenditures that drive deficits and require constant tax hikes.

While the salary of one city official is a minor public cost, producing rewards for city leaders before relief for taxpayers doesn’t inspire hope for the latter.