San Jose City Council members are pushing back on Mayor Matt Mahan‘s proposal to hold elected officials accountable by tying a percentage of their pay to performance metrics. 

If Mahan and the City Council members’ collective performance falls below 100% of the adopted targets for the city, 5% of their salaries will be proportionately reduced based on the actual achievement of the prioritized targets.

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This is not sitting well with at least five City Council members, who said the policy could lead some to focus more on the mayor’s popular priorities rather than addressing the lesser-known specific needs of their constituents. 

“It’s straight out of the toolkit of authoritarian governments where they’re trying to quell dissent,” Councilman David Cohen told SFGate. “In a representative democracy where we have 11 elected officials trying to make decisions, every vote shouldn’t be unanimous. We should accept the fact that people have different ideas on how to get to the solution.”

Mahan hit back at the criticism, saying he’s “tired of my fellow Democrats crying authoritarianism whenever they disagree with something — that is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly or used as a catchall for discontent.”

“The point of our Pay for Performance initiative is not that we agree on every program or policy — the point is that we agree on outcomes and hold ourselves accountable for reaching them,” he posted on X. “We all have different ideas about how to end homelessness or increase community safety but the fact that we have to meet those goals shouldn’t be up for debate — it’s what our community has demanded again and again.”

“The fear-mongering needs to stop — accountability for our elected officials needs to start. I hope San Jose voters are paying attention to which of their leaders are ready to be held accountable and which ones don’t want their pay tied to progress on the issues you elected them to solve. I certainly am,” Mahan continued.

When the Washington Examiner interviewed Mahan in May, the mayor spoke freely about the disconnect between some City Council members and the problems plaguing the city.

Mahan, a former startup tech executive, said he was “flabbergasted” and “incredibly disillusioned” by how little was getting done in the city’s government. 

“There is plenty of wealth here,” he said. “We should have the resources to make meaningful progress. But then I get to City Hall, and people are literally giving 20-minute speeches on the dais. Political speeches. They don’t even offer solutions. They’re often demonizing people and coming up with these random boogeymen like it’s the fault of tech or developers or it’s the media.”

Mahan won his first term as mayor in 2022 with 51.3% of the vote after residents pushed to move the mayoral election to align with the presidential one to increase voter turnout. Two years later, he won a four-year term, securing 87% of the vote. 

He said holding elected officials accountable for their actions is something everyone should support because it promotes greater transparency.

One person on board with Mahan’s proposal is Councilman George Casey, who said performance measures already exist in the public and private sector.

“There’s a level of malaise and apathy folks have toward our political process, and the disconnect they believe exists between local politicians and actual issues that are important to them,” Casey said. “Demonstrating to them that we have skin in the game, hopefully, will engender some sort of revitalization or reinvigorate them and let them know that we are serious about the issues that are important to them.”

Currently, City Council members’ and the mayor’s salaries are determined by the four-member Salary Setting Commission, which operates independently. The commission reviews and sets pay every five years, with annual cost-of-living increases subject to a 5% ceiling. Before 2018, City Council members approved their salaries, but that changed when voters passed Measure U, transferring that authority to the commission. The city’s Civil Service Commission appoints commissioners.

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Under the proposed Pay for Performance plan, the commission’s authority would be overridden. However, it would receive an annual report detailing City Council members’ performance after the City Council first reviews and approves the report.

The proposal is set for a final City Council discussion on June 10.