What’s the Hourly “Wage” of a Newtown Township Supervisor?

Those unfamiliar with the role of a township supervisor may wonder: What exactly do we do? Are we compensated for our efforts?

To answer the first question and as a matter of accountability, I decided to keep track of and report ALL my activities as a Supervisor on a monthly basis. Here’s my list of activities:

• attend required meetings
• attend optional meetings
• prepare for Board of Supervisors (BOS) meetings
• travel to & from meetings
• interact with residents
• engage in other official activities

Yes, there are a lot of meetings! And there’s a lot of preparation for meetings, including reading dozens of documents such as police reports, engineer’s reports, bills lists, proposed ordinances, development agreements, conditional use applications, etc.

And yes, supervisors do get compensated for their time. According to Article VI, Section 606 of the Pennsylvania Second Class Township Code, as a Newtown Township Supervisor I am entitled to receive an annual maximum compensation of $4,125 before taxes. That's about $344 per month.

But what, you may wonder, does that work out to be per hour?

The answer depends on the number of hours a supervisor spends fulfilling his or her official duties as supervisor. Depending on the supervisor and what is considered “official duties,” there can be a wide variation in the number of hours a supervisor devotes to the job.

As mentioned above, supervisors for the most part attend meetings to fulfill their obligations. In Newtown Township, there are biweekly BOS meetings where most decisions are made. In the summer months – June, July, and August - there may be only one BOS meeting per month. There are occasional non-public Executive Sessions where Supervisors discuss legal and personnel matters.

All Newtown supervisors also are liaisons to township committees, commissions, and councils. Liaisons are expected to attend those meetings and report back to the BOS, but this is optional. Finally, there may be monthly public Work Sessions where supervisors hear presentations by developers and others. No decisions are made at Work Sessions, which are also optional.

The really important meetings are the biweekly BOS meetings. Each supervisor is expected to attend all those meetings although occasional absences are tolerated. All the other meetings are really optional, which means a supervisor may only spend 4-5 hours per month attending required meetings. If they are bad supervisors and spend no time at all preparing for these meetings or doing anything else, their hourly rate could be as high as $95! Not bad for government work.

In Newtown I’m certain that every supervisor spends significant time preparing for BOS meetings. After all, he or she is making decisions that affect all residents and it behooves supervisors to make an effort to understand each issue that comes before the BOS for a vote. For me, I spend twice as many hours preparing for BOS meetings than I spend actually attending those meetings.

If preparing for and attending BOS meetings were all I did to fulfill my obligations as Supervisor, my compensation would be about $23 per hour, which is about the average hourly wage in PA.

But preparing for, attending, and traveling to and from BOS meetings only accounts for about 40% of my official activities as supervisor. I spend most of my time attending optional meetings – such as meetings of the Parks and Recreation Board, Finance Committee, Planning Commission, and the Newtown Fire Association - interacting with residents, and engaging in other activities such as meeting business owners, attending educational conferences, participating in official events, etc.

Taking all these activities into account, for the period of January 2019 through August 2019, I spent an average of 43 hours per month on official activities. Thus, I earned an average of $9.51 per hour, which is higher than PA's minimum wage of $7.25 per hour - a rate that has not increased since 2009!

Meanwhile, in April 2019, the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors (PSATS) enacted a resolution for PSATS to seek legislation to amend Section 606 of the Second Class Township Code to increase the compensation of township supervisors and to provide regular adjustments for this compensation based on the increase in the consumer price index.

The money, however, is not what motivated me to be a supervisor. It's really an honor to serve the community after living here and benefiting from township services for nearly 25 years! I learn something new every day and have met and worked with many fine people and volunteers who also put in a lot of time without any compensation at all.