Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and City Council members got another pay hike when the city’s new fiscal year kicked in on Oct. 1 — their second salary bump since they began their four-year term in June 2025.
Jones’ annual salary rose from $96,600 last fiscal year to $100,600 this year, while the 10 council members’ annual pay went up from $77,000 to $80,500.
The adjustments are the result of a city charter amendment that San Antonio voters approved in 2024.
The charter change boosted council pay from $45,722 to $70,200, and the mayor’s salary from $61,725 to $87,000, with the new salaries taking effect in June 2025. Their pay hadn’t been increased since 2015.
Former Mayor Ron Nirenberg assigned a charter review commission in late 2023 to determine how much city representatives should be compensated. The idea was that higher salaries would make it so council members could treat the position as a full-time job — so they would no longer need to work other jobs to pay their bills.
The charter amendment also baked in future raises by tying their pay to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s median income for a four-person household in the San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan area, a figure that fluctuates as HUD updates it every spring. The mayor is paid 100% of that amount and council members receive 80% of it.
The city reviews and adjusts the mayor and council’s salaries during budget season.
The mayor and City Council received their first indexed pay raise a year ago.
This fiscal year’s salary adjustments amount to a 4% raise for Jones and a 4.5% raise for council. That’s slightly higher than the 3% salary increase that city employees will receive as part of the $4.4 billion budget the council adopted in a 7-4 vote on Sept. 17.
Jones voted against the budget, as did council members Marc Whyte, Misty Spears and Marina Alderete Gavito, because they opposed the 3.9% property tax increase required to fund it.