skepticism from government watchdogs.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\nThat earlier proposal would have raised Council members\u2019 salaries to $172,500, the mayor\u2019s salary to $300,500, the public advocate\u2019s salary to $215,000, borough presidents\u2019 salaries to $208,000, the comptroller\u2019s salary to $243,000 and the Council speaker\u2019s salary to $191,000.<\/p>\n
The commission\u2019s recommendation now puts higher numbers before city hall, but through the independent salary-review process that watchdog groups had urged after criticizing the Council\u2019s earlier attempt to move raises legislatively.<\/p>\n
Citizens Union and Common Cause opposed the Council\u2019s earlier plan not because of the proposed increases themselves, but because of the way lawmakers wanted to enact them. At a December hearing, Citizens Union Executive Director Grace Rauh warned that the Council making its own recommendation without independent input could undermine public trust.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Council considered legislation to raise salaries without waiting for a new independent commission.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Williams, a Queens Democrat who sponsored the bill, and Council Member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn), a cosponsor, said at the time that action was needed because Council members had gone nearly a decade without a raise and because compensation should allow \u201cthe best and brightest,\u201d not just the wealthiest, to pursue public service.<\/p>\n
Williams later introduced a bill to formalize the quadrennial review timeline. The Council approved that measure on March 10, requiring the mayor to convene a commission in 2026, then between Jan. 1 and Jan. 15 of 2030, and every four years after that.<\/p>\n
Mamdani appointed the three commission members later that month: Carl Weisbrod, a former city planning official and founding president of the city\u2019s Economic Development Corporation, as chair; Dr. Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, a former deputy mayor for health and human services; and Larian Angelo, a former first deputy director at the Mayor\u2019s Office of Management and Budget and former City Council finance director.<\/p>\n
At the time, Mamdani said Weisbrod, Barrios-Paoli and Angelo would approach the work with \u201cthe seriousness and independence it demands.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
The final report does include some testimony opposing the raises.\n<\/p>\n
Queens Council Member Phil Wong urged the commission not to recommend any salary increase for Council members at this time, arguing that the city faced fiscal challenges and that residents were dealing with rising costs for rent, groceries, and other expenses.<\/p>\n
Several other Council members urged the opposite, writing that salaries had been frozen for nearly a decade while the cost of living increased. They argued that compensation should not deter a diverse cross-section of New Yorkers from running for public office.<\/p>\n
Citizens Union also testified in favor of increasing compensation to offset cost-of-living increases, according to the report, while Reinvent Albany supported appropriate pay tied to accountability reforms, including changes related to third-party travel payments and easier public access to elected officials\u2019 financial disclosure forms.<\/p>\n
The commission did not recommend directly adopting those accountability reforms, saying they should be evaluated by the city\u2019s Conflicts of Interest Board rather than the salary commission.<\/p>\n
Beyond the immediate salary recommendation, the commission also proposed changes meant to prevent future long gaps between reviews.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
It recommended that the city convene the commission every four years, appoint a new commission in early 2028 to make recommendations taking effect with a newly elected Council in January 2030, and pass a law creating an automatic inflation-tied increase of 2% per year or the actual inflation rate, whichever is lower, if a commission is not convened on time.<\/p>\n
The commission also recommended that if the City Council modifies the salary recommendations, it should explain its reasons in writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City elected officials could be in line for a whopping 18.2% pay raises this summer after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[37002,301,108058,108059,11442,22774,108060,19077,15381,9,24,56,63,49453,65,64,28543,108061,108062,82],"class_list":["post-281700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-citizens-union","tag-city-council","tag-common-cause","tag-cost-of-living-adjustment","tag-district-attorneys","tag-elected-officials","tag-government-salaries","tag-julie-menin","tag-nantasha-williams","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-budget-deficit","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-pay-raises","tag-quadrennial-advisory-commission","tag-salary-increase","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}