{"id":242088,"date":"2026-03-29T13:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T13:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/242088\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T13:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T13:15:09","slug":"why-folsom-raised-council-pay-to-22800-annually","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/242088\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Folsom raised council pay to $22,800 annually"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sarah<\/p>\n

Sarah Aquino, former mayor of Folsom, speaks at a news conference in downtown Sacramento on Tuesday, July 15, 2025.<\/p>\n

DANIEL HEUER<\/p>\n

dheuer@sacbee.com<\/p>\n

Imagine you work at one of the worst-paid jobs in town: Everything you do in the job are scrutinized by strangers. People coming by your office to yell at you is basically in the job description. You\u2019re only supposed to be working part-time, but everyone expects you to be on-call 24\/7, including when you travel. You miss birthdays and dinners regularly. And you only make $7,200 a year.<\/p>\n

Sounds bad, right? That\u2019s what it has been like to serve on the Folsom City Council. For years the pay has been stuck at $7,200 annually. That suddenly changed Tuesday with a \u201cbig\u201d raise that really isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Starting in December, the five-person council will each earn $22,800 a year; about a 217% increase. That\u2019s about on par with a part-time job at minimum wage in California, or about $17 an hour.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that\u2019s unreasonable, do you?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a significant amount of time in preparing for meetings, a significant amount of time in public meetings, and constituent response,\u201d said Folsom Mayor Justin Raithel. \u201cThen there\u2019s all the extra things (like) economic development \u2026 working with different business groups and different ideas.\u201d He also mentioned the work council members often do advocating on the state level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think these five (council members) who serve are people that really care deeply,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re not serving there for the money, but the idea is, if you can give them a little more pay, then \u2026 hopefully they can afford to give you a few more hours, right? To advocate for Folsom and move initiatives forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to reporting by The Bee<\/a>, Sacramento City Council members are considered full-time and earn a little more than $111,000 a year. Elk Grove council members earn $30,600 a year, Citrus Heights council members earn $22,800 a year and Rocklin council members earn $8,220 a year.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s really never a good time to ask the public for a raise, but Folsom\u2019s city council at least waited until their ducks were in order. Until recently, the city had been facing a $3 million budget deficit. But the city will be back in the black when the new fiscal year starts this July. Additionally, the approved raises won\u2019t go into effect until December, after the new council members have been sworn in.<\/p>\n

City Manager Bryan Whitemyer will also receive a raise, bringing his annual salary from $319,296 to $332,072, around 4% higher, after about a year in the job.<\/p>\n

Legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023, Senate Bill 329, increased the maximum salaries for council members based on city population. Since Folsom has a population of around 92,000, council members can earn up to $22,800, exactly what Folsom is asking for. They just have to consider any pay increase in an open session across at least two meetings before final approval, according to the new law.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to see even a lick of greediness in this (and I tried) despite what some Folsom residents might believe. The council waited until the budget was secure, abided by the new law to the letter, and are giving themselves a modest raise for what is honestly a pretty hard job without a lot of credit.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly the kind of behavior we should expect of our representatives, and that\u2019s exactly what Folsom\u2019s council members did. Good on them.<\/p>\n

Other city councils in the area should take note.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Robin Epley is an opinion writer for The Sacramento Bee, with a focus on Sacramento County politics. She was born and raised in Sacramento, was a member of the Chico Enterprise-Record\u2019s Pulitzer Prize-finalist team for coverage of the Camp Fire, and is a graduate of Chico State.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarah Aquino, former mayor of Folsom, speaks at a news conference in downtown Sacramento on Tuesday, July 15,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[108685,108684,108686,108687,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-242088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-council-salary-increase","tag-folsom-city-council-pay-raise","tag-folsom-city-pay","tag-local-government-compensation","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}