By Jeffrey Shwom

The City Council continues to work on a city ordinance that would increase city councilors, school committee members and the mayor’s salary “by the percentage of the most recent annual cost-of-living percentage adjustment received by non-union city personnel.”

Critics are concerned that councilors would be giving themselves an automatic annual raise and bypassing a semi-annual advisory board and the city’s personnel department recommendations. This would start January 1, 2026, when the next elected city council convenes to avoid councilors setting their own salaries. In 2025, the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) is 2.5% and if that were the case next year, a city councilor would see their salary go from $40,000 to $41,000. The mayor would go up from $180,000 to $184,500.

When asked for the rationale behind the use of automatic COLA, Councilor Ewen responded via text message, “I’m working on a revised draft that we will take up at a future meeting, hopefully in 2 weeks (April 8 finance committee, presumed). Happy to comment once I have new language to submit.” When asked further about whether this ordinance could be perceived as a bypass to MCAB and public scrutiny, the councilor responded, “Happy to discuss once we have new language.”

This comes on the heels of the Finance Committee recommending approval of 250 non-union employees getting updated pay bands and a salary floor of $65,000 ($18 per hour), retroactive to January 5, 2025, at a cost of $922,609. The previous salary floor for the lowest level non-union city employee was $40,000. As part of this non-union employee conversation, the city received recommendations from the Municipal Compensation Advisory Board (MCAB), which is convened every even year to evaluate compensation and allowances for certain city workers.

Overall, MCAB recommended no changes to salary of city councilors, school committee members and the mayor, based on documents received by The Times and received by City Councilors in January. For example, analysis showed that City Councilor compensation ($40,000) is already significantly higher than the average of area municipalities ($25,000). And based on the number of hours city councilors serve (approximately 600 hours total per year), their salary equated to $67 an hour.

There has been frustration aired by other councilors as well about the lack of input they have. Per March 11 meeting notes, “[Human Resource] Director Gill shared that the Municipal Compensation Advisory Board is planning to meet to discuss the topic of automated future increases for council salaries.” On March 25, Councilor J.T. Scott further asked that given the last time this process happened, no city councilor had been asked for input. He was curious as to whether Anne Gill, Director of Human Resources, would engage any member of the city councilor before giving another set of recommendations. Ms. Gill stated,” we really have not discussed that quite yet.”