After voting to give themselves a 20% raise last year, the Boston City Council is now looking to do the same for their staff.
City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson introduced an ordinance that, if passed, would hike the office staff budget from $315,000 to $390,000 for each city councilor, and $385,000 to $460,000 for the council president.
If the council votes to increase their office staff budgets, it would be the third salary increase granted for staffers since last June, when respective office budgets bumped up to $303,142 and $314,000, and would quickly follow current figures set by the panel in January, according to city documents.
Fernandes Anderson said the salary hikes are necessary to keep up with inflation and the high cost of living in Boston. While not included in the ordinance, she is seeking a minimum pay rate of $72,000 for low-level staffers, and suggested that chiefs of staff make as much as $103,000, or roughly the same as their bosses make now.
“The point is we’re not paying our staff properly,” Fernandes Anderson said at a Wednesday City Council meeting. “If we love people and we care about people, we respect them, and if you respect them, you pay them.”
She cautioned city councilors against comparing their salaries to that of their staff, “who go above and beyond,” particularly their chiefs of staff, who work “50 to 60 to 70 hours per week.”
While the maximum pay for chiefs of staff would be comparable to city councilor salaries under Fernandes Anderson’s proposed rates, the equitable pay wouldn’t last long. The raise the City Council voted to give itself in November, after overriding a veto from Mayor Michelle Wu, would take effect in 2024.
City councilors will see their annual salary increase to $115,000 in 2024, $120,000 in 2025 and $125,000 in 2026.
“We know that increasing our budget for our pay is contentious or it’s controversial,” Fernandes Anderson said. “People will come out — all the trolls on Twitter might start saying that city councilors are politicians and greedy, and therefore want to pay themselves a lot of money.”
“But this is not about us,” she added. “Again, we shouldn’t compare what we get paid to our staff.”
A minimum and maximum salary for City Council staffers would be a new concept, according to a spokesperson for Council President Ed Flynn, who said that, aside from central office employees, the amount a staffer is paid is currently determined by the individual councilor.
Before this ordinance is considered, Flynn said more work is needed, to strike a balance between offering “good wages” and putting forth a “fiscally responsible” budget for the City Council. It will remain in the Committee on Rules and Administration, where it was first discussed on Monday.
“As the City Council president, I have worked to put forward a budget that would address the needs of each office, while also allowing us to offer better compensation for our staff,” Flynn said. “I will continue to advocate for a City Council budget that will give us the resources to operate well, offer competitive salaries, and is also fiscally responsible.”