It’s an outrageous move on numerous fronts: City Council members are attempting to pass a substantial pay raise for themselves.
Mere days after the approval of a colossal $126 billion city budget, they introduced a proposal to increase their salaries by over 18%, effective retroactively from January 1, accompanied by automatic annual raises of 2% thereafter.
These increases would elevate council members’ salaries to $175,500, placing them in an upper-middle-class bracket, more than doubling the city’s median income of $81,228.
This decision demonstrates utter disregard for city voters, whom the politicians evidently believe will overlook this move, as well as a blatant disregard for the City Charter, which outlines a completely different method for salary increases.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Speaker Julie Menin should be held accountable if they permit this to go forward, instead of standing up to members seeking this financial windfall.
And shame on the supposed good-government groups currying favor by claiming a $27,000 increase will attract superior candidates.
Hah! The council awarded itself fat $30,000 raises in 2016 with no sign of improvement at all; the simple fact is that the job was never meant to be a good career move, but rather a public service that might interrupt a normal career.
Los Angeles and Chicago pay their councilmembers more — and those towns are now worse disasters than Gotham.
The City Charter requires the convening of a pay panel every four years — specifically during the third year of a mayoral administration — to prevent immediate conflicts of interest: By moving now, the council majority would be declaring themselves proud to line their own pockets.
Private-sector workers don’t get automatic cost-of-living adjustments, nor do regular city workers: What entitles the council members to them, other than “we think we can get away with it”?
Mamdani should order his City Charter Commission to fix this loophole by asking city voters to explicitly ban this self-dealing.
And if Menin means to be seen as a real leader, she can’t just announce she won’t take the raise: She needs to refuse to allow a floor vote on this outrage.
If neither of them steps up, they’re declaring that they, too, hold regular New Yorkers in complete contempt.