Taxpayer, Can You Spare A Dime?
Actually, it would be about 85,000 dimes. That’s the amount of a proposed raise that is being floated around the City-County building for members of the City-County Council who want an $8500 raise.
Currently, Council Members make a base pay of $11,400 a year, not including meetings. Their base salary is 12 percent of the Mayor’s salary which is $95,000. The Mayor’s Office got a raise in 2000. Council members also get $112 per council meeting and $62 per committee meeting. There can be no more than 21 council meetings per year and 62 committee meetings. The Council President gets an extra $1982 per year, while the Vice-President, Majority Leader and Minority Leader get $1320. Committee Chairs gets $797. However, a council member can’t get two extra salaries, so if a member is Vice-President and also committee chair, they could only get one stipend. In a perfect world, the most a council member could make would be just over $16,000.
A raise would be a bad idea. Not that Council Members don’t deserve it, per se, however, when the City and County are faced with serious financial crises, including looking for $140 million to make up a budget shortfall, public safety obligations, crime at record levels, pension obligations and not to mention the tax increases that were passed, it would be very bad public relations for the Council to give themselves an $8500 raise. However, the way things have gone this year down at city hall, it would not surprise me if this went through.
