Hey, there! Log in / Register

Councilors to consider 28.5% raise for themselves tomorrow

City Council members tomorrow consider a proposal by Council President Bill Linehan to raise their pay from $87,500 to $112,500.

Normally, requests to the council are first assigned to a council committee for a hearing before returning to the council for a vote. Councilors could suspend that rule and vote immediately on the idea, which would then go to the mayor for his consideration. And that raises an interesting possibility: Walsh will shortly leave for a ten-day trip for Ireland, during which Linehan would serve as acting mayor - which means that, theoretically, he could sign the pay raise into law, since the city charter gives acting mayors the same powers as elected mayors.

Councilors have not gotten a raise in several years. The Herald reports all but two councilors turned Sgt. Schultz yesterday - only Frank Baker (Dorchester), who says he's worth it, and Mark Ciommo (Allston/Brighton), who channeled Bill Belichick, talked to a reporter.

The council's meeting begins at noon in its fifth-floor chambers in City Hall.

AttachmentSize
PDF icon Linehan's raise proposal35.58 KB


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

.

up
Voting closed 0

Every last one should be voted out! Hey Councilors, this is a part-time job!

up
Voting closed 0

This jump all at once is too much. If they were going from $40,000 to $60,000 it might be OK, but jumping from the 80's to well over 100k is insulting when there are still plenty of unfunded/underfunded programs in the city.

Give them each $10k more and throw the rest at fixing the schools.

up
Voting closed 0

If the raise is supposed to cover 8 years, then Linehan is actually for 3.2 percent for each year.

up
Voting closed 0

entitled to a retroactive pay raise. Just because the economy is slowly starting to strengthen, they're entitled to compensation for a period of time when the entire labor force was seeing stagnant growth?

Not to mention, their are a few councilors who weren't councilors 9 years ago.

up
Voting closed 0

They should make no more than the median income of residents in their respective districts or the city as a whole.

up
Voting closed 0

Firefighters?

up
Voting closed 0

According to the Herald article they made $20k in 1980. If they got cost of living increases each year, according to the BLS inflation calculator they would be making $57,827.67 today.

Plus AMAZING health care plus a generous pension.

C'mon folks.

up
Voting closed 0

That's if they followed inflation, but what if they got increases that matched the actual cost of living increases. I assume some things (housing?) have outpaced inflation.

Don't know how the numbers would turn out, just wondering...

up
Voting closed 0

Plus AMAZING health care plus a generous pension.

Said it before: $87K salary + bennies is damn good for a part-time job

up
Voting closed 0

Find a new job.....

up
Voting closed 0

Should be making six figures. Ever.

up
Voting closed 0

appropriations by the people.

I don't live in the City, and even I find this offensive. Boston has a mayor-strong form of city government. The Council has little responsibility. The Councilors should be paid accordingly and should recognize that.

As to the Linehan-could-sign-this-into-law-whilst-Walsh-is-on-the-Auld Sod bit, well, that would be the gift that keeps on giving for the press and anyone who has ever even thought of running for City Council. It would also draw unwelcome national press (and state legislative attention)), so you go right ahead, Billy, and kiss all those home rule petitions bye-bye.

up
Voting closed 0

So, the justification is that they haven't done this for a while and everyone else is doing it?

Wow. I mean, if they'd accomplished something groundbreaking recently or wanted to show that they were in trouble of not finding qualified candidates for the positions because people weren't willing to take the pay loss or something, then they might be on to something.

NYC's city councillors are getting $112,500 (hmm, that's a familiar number).

We are not NYC.

up
Voting closed 0

This is going to be bad for a few re-election battles.

Suzanne Lee against Linehan?
Jean Claude against McCarthy?
Mike Nichols against Zakim?

The last one in particular would be interesting. That race was under 5% despite all of Zakim's money.

This vote should be verrrrrrrrrrry interesting.

up
Voting closed 0

If you want quality representation you need to pay a quality salary.
The best people for the job are in the private sector because it pays. If you make public service attractive you will attract the best and brightest. Simple economics here. Don't be penny wise and dollar foolish!
(No I am not a city councilor haha)

up
Voting closed 0

If you want quality representation you need to pay a quality salary.

It depends.

If they are in a position of power, can make decisions, and can get stuff done, then I agree.

I don't live in the city, so I'm totally clueless with regards to city councilors, but it appears that they have very limited power and can't get much done themselves. The mayor seems to have all the power. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

And again, it's a part-time job.

up
Voting closed 0

Yet, they're not saying that they're incompetent to be city councilors and should be replaced by someone who would demand a bigger paycheck. They're just saying *they're* worth more to us than $90k each. I have my doubts.

The other thing that raising the salary does is create a bigger pot of money for them to spend to get re-elected. It raises the entry barrier for people to run against them. Not only are they part-time councilors (giving them more time to focus on staying elected) but their opponents are going to have to build enough of a bankroll that they can compete with someone making $100k+ while simultaneously keeping their own lives running in case they lose to the incumbent (most likely). So, it raises the bar as to who can even run against them...making the whole thing a positive feedback loop for separating the bougey political class from the proletariat.

up
Voting closed 0

Budget. Boston City Council
http://www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/13%20Non-Mayoral%20Departme...
http://goo.gl/zVb6fX

100 or so Staff. Boston City Council
http://bh.heraldinteractive.com/projects/your_tax_dollars.bg?src=Boston2...
http://goo.gl/Wqcof6

Contract. City Stenographer. Boston City Council
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1263415-stenographer-contract-fy1...
http://goo.gl/dMr5ZQ

Article 2.3 of that Contract routinely violated, City Councilors routinely deflect enquiries for public records and public archives of Boston City Council, deflect access to badly managed records in the Boston City Council Library/Archives, deflect civic participation through intimidating practices, procedures and the too hard public seating in the Council Chamber! Evaluate how well each of the City Councilors and Council President do their work and what each needs to do for a better evaluation. There should be no increase without evaluations of each City Council member particularly with regard to records management of Council records/data.

Councilor Wu, City Clerk Feeney a former City Councilor, Assistant City Clerk Geourntas, and Research and Policy Director Nichols a former Candidate for Boston City Council, began to address a bit of the problematical records management at Boston City Council but all fail to follow through substantively.

Evaluate the qualities of Councilors' appointments to Central Staff at Boston City Council that could be improved with better qualified people more knowledgeable about records management, historic preservation of Council Archives, new technologies and software. Promote/transfer current Central Staff and get new more up to date folks for a better run Boston City Council Office.

up
Voting closed 0

You can have your raises, but you all have to cut your budgets/staff by 50%. $4.5million in salaries for City Council and staff.

up
Voting closed 0