After a public outcry last fall over a proposed City Council compensation increase from $25 to $1,200$1,500 per month, the Council Compensation Committee is recommending $250 per month based on input from residents.
“Most citizens wanted to give a slightly increased honorarium but were not happy that one it was presented after the budget went active, and two, that the council members proposed a raise for themselves, and three it was an extremely large increase,” said Stacy Stork, a committee member. “I felt comfortable with $100 to $250 per month for all Council members. I presented points why the mayor should not be granted a higher amount since when that member is elected to the council, they are equal to the other four.”
Last fall, proponents of the measure said raising the council’s compensation from $25 dollars to $1,200 per month, and from $25 to $1,500 month for the mayor’s position, was necessary to attract people from all income levels but subsequently voted the measure down in the face of strong opposition.
Since that time, each member of council appointed a fivemember ad hoc compensation committee that includes Stork, Alex Allrich, Jorge Muñoz and Richard Stone, who met June 20 and July 5.
At the July 5 compensation committee meeting, members voted to recommend a pay increase from $25 to $250 per month for all council members, but they decided the raise should go into effect incrementally as new members are elected or current ones are reelected beginning in June 2024 and going through June 2026.
“It’s not going to happen all at one time,” said Jose Orta, the committee chair.
“It’s going to take about three election cycles for everybody on the City Council to start getting this compensation.
And the reason we did that was in the emails that we received from the community, about half of those all made that type of recommendation because they felt that these individuals were already on the city council and got on the city council knowing what their compensation was going to be.”
This committee will also recommend that the mayor’s position should be equal to the rest of the council, Stork said.
In addition, the committee will recommend the creation of a city charter committee to review how the mayor’s position is elected and how cost of living adjustments can be incorporated into the compensation formula, according to the July 5 meeting’s minutes.
Orta said this plan is not a done deal, as he will be presenting these recommendations to the council at their July 27 meeting.
“It is up to the city council to decide,” Orta said. “They could either accept our recommendation and vote on it, or vote it down and call another ad hoc committee, or just table it altogether.”
