{"id":401311,"date":"2026-07-16T21:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T21:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/401311\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T21:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T21:48:08","slug":"el-cajon-city-council-turns-down-pay-raise-amid-budget-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/401311\/","title":{"rendered":"El Cajon City Council turns down pay raise amid budget concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

The El Cajon City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted down a proposal to give itself a pay raise, citing recent budget cuts and ongoing economic pressures.<\/p>\n

Proposed by staff, the cost-of-living increase would have raised salaries for council members and the mayor by 5 percent, beginning in 2027. The adjustment would have increased the monthly salary for the mayor from $3,380 to $3,549 and for council member from $2,336 to $2,453.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that we have had to tighten our belts in the city and that we\u2019ve had to make cuts to departments \u2026 I would not vote for an increase,\u201d Councilmember Michelle Metschel said. \u201cThe optics on it, I think, would be bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

In total, the pay raise would have an annual cost to the city of $7,644, plus associated pension costs, according to a staff report.<\/p>\n

But officials unanimously agreed the raise could wait, noting the city\u2019s tight financial situation that led to across-the-board<\/a> budget cuts for the current fiscal year.<\/p>\n

While Mayor Bill Wells agreed a raise was unnecessary given the city\u2019s constrained budget, he noted that putting off cost-of-living pay increases would eventually come at a cost to the city.<\/p>\n

Their decision follows a modest pay increase approved by leaders in early 2024. Still, El Cajon offers the highest council compensation of the East County cities.<\/p>\n

La Mesa City Council members are paid $1,900 per month, while the mayor makes $3,800 monthly. Santee City Council members are paid $1,983 a month, with the mayor bringing in about $3,343 per month. Lemon Grove recently approved a salary increase, but leaders are compensated significantly less than those in surrounding cities; council members are paid $950 per month while the mayor earns $1,662.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll make do, and I ask my colleagues to also make do as a show of faith to our communities who are struggling right now,\u201d Metschel said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The El Cajon City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted down a proposal to give itself a pay raise,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,3053,6568,181,23,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-401311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-east-county","tag-el-cajon","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401311","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=401311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}