DALTON, Ga. — The city of Dalton must pay its new administrator about $17,000 more than his predecessor to keep pace with what surrounding governments pay their administrators, two council members said.

When Dalton Police Chief Jason Parker starts in his new role as city administrator, expected in less than two weeks, his annual salary will be $112,000. That’s 18 percent more than former city administrator Ty Ross was making when he stepped down in September 2016. Ross was making $95,014 after almost seven years on the job. Ross did not offer an explanation for why he stepped down.

Parker will also receive a cellphone and city vehicle.

As police chief, Parker’s salary is $99,715.

“(Human Resources Director) Greg Batts did a salary survey of cities comparable to us,” said council member Gary Crews. “And $112,000 is still on the low end of the salary range of those comparable cities. Yes, it is more than we’ve been paying, but it is on the low end. And if you remember, when Ty was here, he’d been the finalist for two other jobs that paid quite a bit more than he was making.”

Ross was a finalist for city manager in Statesboro and in Cookeville, Tenn. He was hired last year as city manager in Loudon, Tenn.

But given that the city was hiring internally did it have to worry about what other cities were paying?

“We did end up hiring internally, but the spirit of the process was that we wanted to attract and hire candidates from anywhere and everywhere,” said council member Annalee Harlan. “I think we were successful in attracting a number of candidates, and Jason Parker just outshined them all.”

The city advertised about $100,000 to $110,000, according to Crews.

Crews says the city manager in Canton (population of about 26,000), for instance, has a salary of $120,000, according to research the city has done, and the city manager in Gainesville (population of about 40,000) has a salary of $140,000. Dalton’s population is about 34,000.

“A lot of the places we were comparing ourselves to also have city managers, not city administrators,” said Crews. “Managers tend to be compensated a little bit better than administrators. We’ve been discussing moving to a manager form of government, and that’s something we discussed with candidates when we interviewed them.”

While there are no firm differences between city managers and city administrators, managers tend to have more authority. In particular, city managers generally have the power to hire and fire department heads while administrators do not.

Crews also cited Parker’s experience as a factor driving his salary. Parker has been a Dalton police officer since 1987 and has been chief of police since 2007. He served five years in the U.S. Army as a military police officer and one year with the Chatsworth Police Department as a patrol officer. He has a bachelor’s degree in organizational management from Covenant College and a master of public administration degree from Columbus State University.

Parker was one of two finalists for the position. The other was Patrick Comiskey, city manager of Thomaston from 2002 to 2016 and city manager of Wellsburg, W.Va., from 1998 to 2002. Thomaston is a city of about 10,000 about 70 miles south of Atlanta. Comiskey has a bachelor of arts from the University of Florida and a master’s degree in public administration from West Virginia University.

Mayor Dennis Mock and council members Tyree Goodlett and Denise Wood did not immediately return messages left on their cellphones Thursday afternoon.