The City of Rehoboth Beach will be welcoming its third city manager in two years this spring, and it will be paying a pretty penny to get a well-qualified candidate.
Recently hired Taylour Tedder will receive a starting annual salary of $250,000, with annual opportunities for raises. Additionally, officials agreed to a no-interest, city-backed loan of a whopping $750,000 so Tedder can purchase a home within 15 miles of Rehoboth Beach. If he stays with the city for seven years, he will not have to pay it back. On top of that, the city will reimburse Tedder up to $50,000 to facilitate a move from his current home in Boulder City, Nev.
When former city manager Sharon Lynn left in 2022, her annual salary was $141,000. When Laurence Christian exited last fall after less than a year on the job, his annual salary was $160,000.
A $90,000 jump was already a tough pill to swallow for many Rehoboth residents, but the added $800,000 in benefits is unfathomable for a city of Rehoboth’s size, especially in the wake of city officials raising property taxes, water and wastewater fees, and parking rates to make up for a significant budget shortfall.
As a comparison, Tedder, who reportedly makes an annual salary of $187,000 in Boulder City, is coming from a city of 15,000 residents where he oversees 212 full-time and 135 part-time employees. Boulder City’s budget is $198 million. In Rehoboth, Tedder will manage about 100 full-time and 26 part-time employees. The city’s population is just over 1,100 residents – which balloons in the summer – and it has a budget of $38.7 million.
While they are different towns with different challenges, it’s hard to justify that much of a monetary investment in a city manager who will be overseeing a smaller workforce with a smaller budget in a much less populated town.
Following the well-documented struggles to balance the budget, resulting in across-the-board increases in taxes and fees, city officials owe residents and taxpayers a full explanation for how and why this decision was made.
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Editorials are considered and written by Cape Gazette Editorial Board members, including Publisher Chris Rausch, Editor Jen Ellingsworth, News Editor Nick Roth and reporters Ron MacArthur and Chris Flood.
