Hogsett is Owed $63,000

Source: WISH-TV / other

INDIANAPOLIS — Mayor Joe Hogsett missed out on more than $60,000 in compensation due to an accounting error, according to city officials.

The missed payments were tied to what’s known as deferred compensation, which is another name for a retirement plan. Elected officials are entitled to an annual employer contribution of $7,500, but Hogsett did not receive the employer match despite making his annual contribution into the fund.

It’s unclear how the error went undetected for so long. A mayor’s spokesperson told Mirror Indy in an email that the error was discovered during a 2023 review of the salaries of city-county councilors.

A review of the mayor’s past wages since taking office in 2016 found the mayor is owed $63,437, according to a July 2024 memorandum of understanding between the Marion County Auditor’s Office and the city’s Office of Finance and Management.

“The parties recognize the erroneous failure on their part to provide wages to fund the deferred compensation account,” the memo reads in part.

To remedy the issue, Marion County Auditor Myla Eldridge is sending lump sum payments across three years: $21,800 last year and this year, and $19,837 next year.

Hogsett earns an annual salary of $95,000, but his 2024 compensation reflects the catch-up sums and is listed as $120,549, according to Indiana Gateway, which collects data from local units of government and publishes them online.

Because the deferred compensation fund is invested in the stock market, Hogsett likely missed out on tens of thousands of dollars in potential investment gains, said Dan Parker, the mayor’s chief of staff.

“The reality is, he actually lost money,” Parker told Mirror Indy. “If this money was invested, I think he probably would have made something if it was an investment fund.”

The city has “put into place safeguards to prevent this error from happening in the future,” according to the memo.

Meanwhile, the City-County Council Administration and Finance Committee advanced a resolution March 11 that would automate the process of employer contributions to deferred compensation plans, preventing errors like this from happening again.

Councilor Frank Mascari, a southeast side Democratic who authored the proposal, declined to say if it was directly related to the mayor’s issue in a statement through a spokesperson.

The mayor’s spokesperson also declined to say whether the proposal was related. In a statement, the spokesperson said the proposal came about after the city’s Office of Finance and Management and the Human Resources Division “identified an opportunity” to make the deferred compensation contribution process “more efficient.”

The full council could vote on the proposal as early as next month.

Hogsett has said he won’t accept a pay increase during his time as mayor. In October, the City-County Council voted to raise the salaries of elected officials, though the mayor’s pay won’t increase to $150,000 until 2028, which is after his current term ends.

The mayor of Indianapolis earns well below his peers in cities like Columbus, Ohio, and Nashville, Tennessee, where the position earns upward of $200,000