What the adopted budget says
The amended 2026 budget the council adopted in late January carries a salary addendum listing every elected official . The council rows:
| Office | Annual salary |
|---|---|
| Council member | $16,648 |
| Council member | $16,536 |
| Council member | $15,280 * |
| Council member (three seats) | $9,600 each |
| Mayor | $70,000 |
| City attorney | $88,200 |
| City clerk | $83,000 |
| City treasurer | $67,400 |
| All elected officials, budget total | $394,224 |
* The budget's 2026 total for this seat is $23,640 — its $15,280 salary plus a one-time $8,360 addition, explained on the record at the January 20 council meeting (next section). It is back pay, not a raise.
The six council salaries add to $77,264 a year at the listed rates. No member's salary is $21,000. Half the council is paid $800 a month. Mayor Joseph Whitfield stated the same split from the dais when a resident asked at a January 14 town hall meeting: three members make about $9,000, and the others at least $15,000. 1:04:30
The budget lists the rates by seat, not by name, so the document alone does not say which member is paid which amount.
The one line that isn't what it looks like
One council seat's 2026 total, $23,640, sits $8,360 above its listed salary. That is not a raise. At the January 20 council meeting, the official presenting the budget told the council the amount had been added to Councilman Don Etherly's line — under "admin, under the elected officials" — as compensation for his months as interim mayor in 2025, and offered to remove it: "If you guys want to give it to him, I'll leave it in. If we decide to take it out, it's simple to take out." 2:06:06 The council left it in, and the budget was adopted January 28 with the line included. One-time back pay for running the city, not an increase in council pay.
What the 2022 sheet says, and what changed
The sheet circulating on Facebook is dated April 8, 2022. It put the council's combined salaries at $103,183 — about $17,200 per member — plus roughly $24,400 in benefits, and compared that to six Arkansas cities of similar population. We have not audited its 2022 figures. But its central number is four years old, and the salary picture has moved: the same six seats' combined listed salaries today are $77,264, about 25 percent lower.
The sheet's $21,268 "average total compensation" also included health insurance — it reported five members enrolled at $407.08 a month at the time. Whether and how many members take city health insurance today is not stated in the current budget (see below), so the salary numbers are the part that can be checked against the adopted record. On salary, no member is near $21,000.
The comparison still holds
The sheet's direction, however, survives with current data. The Arkansas Municipal League's 2025 salary survey collected council pay from 43 Arkansas cities. The statewide median council salary is $4,262 a year. Cities closest to Helena-West Helena in population reported these per-member salaries:
| City | Population | Council salary |
|---|---|---|
| Greenwood | 9,516 | $3,908 |
| Hope | 8,952 | $5,000 |
| Wynne | 8,314 | $6,335 |
| Newport | 8,005 | $4,700 |
| Forrest City | 13,015 | $6,978 |
| Blytheville | 13,406 | $7,573 |
| Helena-West Helena | ~9,800 | $9,600–$16,648 |
Helena-West Helena's three lowest-paid seats, at $9,600, are above every comparable-size city in the survey. The three seats near $16,000 are in the range the survey shows for North Little Rock ($17,500) and Bentonville ($15,564) — cities five to six times Helena-West Helena's population. Fort Smith, the state's third-largest city, pays its directors $7,800.
The council has voted against raising its own pay
Twice in the current record, the council has gone the other way from the sheet's implication. When it adopted the 2025 budget on January 29, 2025 — Resolution 003-2025, passed 6–0 — it did so explicitly amended to include no salary increases, which blocked a proposal that would have equalized all six council seats upward to $16,648 . And at the January 13, 2026 budget workshop, Councilman Joe St. Columbia moved to hold the line on the city's 2022 base-pay structure:
"Personally, I think we need to keep the old 2022 base pay ordinance and… take off those jobs that don't exist anymore, like the dispatchers and dispatch supervisors… I'm not for paying higher salaries… I move we keep the ordinance of the 2022 base pay ordinance. That's my motion."
— Councilman Joe St. Columbia, January 13, 2026 (seconded) 1:01:00
Mayor Whitfield, at the same workshop, argued the city's problem is broader than any salary line:
"Salary alone isn't the issue… it's been arguably more ill-timed bonuses or raises… and the amount of overspending we've done, claims that have gone unanswered."
— Mayor Joseph Whitfield, January 13, 2026 0:40:22
Who sets council pay, and the rules around it
Council salaries are set by the council itself, by ordinance. Arkansas law for first-class cities says an officer "shall receive such salary as the council of any city may designate" (Ark. Code § 14-43-409).
Two rules shape any change (Ark. Code § 14-42-113):
- A salary can be raised during an official's term.
- A salary cannot be cut during an official's term — unless the official requests the cut in writing. A requested cut is personal: when that official's term ends, the office's salary returns to its prior level.
The practical effect: any council-wide pay change downward can only take effect seat by seat, as terms end. Mayor Whitfield described the constraint from his own experience at the January 13 workshop: "Statutorily, when I took the role… you can't change an elected, appointed official's salary." 0:27:51 All six council seats are on the November 2026 ballot.
What the record does not show
Three things the public documents do not answer. We flag them rather than guess.
- Benefits. The 2026 budget lists administration health insurance as one line — $108,276 across all administration positions, elected and staff together. It does not say whether council members are enrolled, how many, or at what cost. The 2022 sheet claimed five members were enrolled then. Current enrollment is a question for the city clerk.
- Which member is paid which rate. The budget lists rates by seat count only. The workshop record ties the $15,280 line to Councilman Etherly (via the back-pay addition above); the other five members are not matched to amounts anywhere in the posted documents.
- Why the rates differ. Three seats pay $9,600 and three pay $15,280 to $16,648. The ordinance history that produced the split is not in the city's posted meeting packets. The pattern in the record — newer members at $9,600, longer-tenured members at the higher rates — suggests the higher salaries are legacy rates, but the governing ordinance text is what would settle it.
How this was reported. This article is written from the City of Helena-West Helena's adopted 2026 amended budget and salary addendum, the city's posted council packets, the city's own video of the January 13, 2026 budget workshop, the January 14 town hall, and the January 20 council meeting, the Arkansas Code, and the Arkansas Municipal League's 2025 salary survey (43 cities reporting council pay; Helena-West Helena did not participate, so its figures above come from its own budget). Every quotation was checked against the recording at the cited timestamp, and every timestamp opens the video at that moment so you can check it too. This article takes no position on what council pay should be. Corrections are welcome and will be made promptly: cheekforhelena@gmail.com.