While Hanover County’s Board of Supervisors routinely raises salaries for employees across various county departments, the county’s appointed boards and commissions haven’t received a pay increase in over a decade. But that may be about to change.
County staff recently studied compensation in other Virginia localities to determine just how far behind the curve Hanover’s pay scale is. Deputy County Administrator Jay Brown presented staff’s findings to the finance committee last week.
“We did a market review just to see how our boards compare with other boards in the region,” Brown told VPM News. “Several of our boards are behind the market, so we presented those findings and made some recommendations to the finance committee.”
Brown said Hanover’s study was based on compensation data from 13 other localities — including Chesterfield and Henrico counties, two of Hanover’s closest neighbors.
“We used Chesterfield and Henrico as a guide just to see where the market is,” Brown said. “There was some recognition that we have several boards and commissions that, based on that review, appear to have historically fallen behind.”
Brown added that some factors — like increases in population and annual revenue — give other localities the ability to pay their appointed boards more, but said they shouldn’t account for the size of the pay gap.
For example, members of Hanover’s planning commission, who have not received a raise since 2003, make $10,000 annually. Their counterparts in Henrico and Chesterfield make $20,000 and $26,640, respectively. (Appointed boards and commissions are generally part-time positions.)
Hanover’s supervisors receive a 3% annual increase to their salaries each calendar year. In 2025, elected board members will make $30,463. Henrico and Chesterfield supervisors will receive $68,036 and $43,542, respectively.
Hanover’s school board was criticized by the county’s NAACP chapter and other groups for attempting to give itself a raise in 2023, but the board’s $8,000 annual salary hasn’t increased since 2006.
Procedurally, the school board would have to approve its own wage increase, but Hanover supervisors have signaled support for increasing school board salaries as recently as a joint work session in March.
“The school board has not had a raise since 2006. It's been 19 years. We cannot vote to do that here, but I do support the school board voting themselves a raise,” Supervisor Michael Herzberg, chair of the board, said last month. “I think the school board does a lot of work and [is] undercompensated.”
Brown made several recommendations to the finance committee to adjust salaries across several boards and commissions — but said the goal isn’t to match what other localities are paying.
“Many of the considerations weren’t to make our boards match others, but really just to bring it more in line or more in market,” Brown said. “It's possible that we could see changes no earlier than the board’s May meeting.”
