.<\/strong><\/p>\nThe bill introduced by Councilwoman Nantasha Williams (D-Queens) would increase their salaries to $172,500. <\/p>\n
And the paychecks of the mayor, public advocate and borough presidents would also see bumps, if the bill is passed.<\/p>\n
But the legislation arguably puts Mamdani, a democratic socialist who campaigned on affordability for working class New Yorkers, in a bind.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d potentially be asked to give himself a pay bump from the current $258,750 to $300,500 within days of taking the oath of office \u2014 or risk alienating the City Council, if he vetoes the bill.<\/p>\n
One of Zohran Mamdani\u2019s first decisions as mayor could be whether to give the Council, and himself, a raise. Lev Radin\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Both Rauh and Samantha S\u00e1nchez, a policy manager at the Common Cause New York watchdog, agreed elected officials should be well paid, given the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n
They argued council members should have instead waited for Mamdani to convene a \u201ccompensation commission\u201d tasked with making recommendations on pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis approach would preserve independent review, maintain continuity with decades of established practice, and ensure that compensation decisions are made through a legitimate and accountable process,\u201d S\u00e1nchez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is, however, possible to raise salaries through an honest, transparent and credible process, but the legislation before you today does not do that,\u201d Rauh said.<\/p>\n
Rauh noted council members could pursue other routes that bypass Mamdani, such as amending the law to allow another elected official to appoint the pay commission.<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Nantasha Williams (D-Queens) pushed the bill. Hans Pennink<\/p>\n
Williams initially tried to push the bill for a speedy vote before Mamdani took office, but had to scrap the plan when officials pointed out city law blocks lawmakers from voting on pay raises during the post-election lame-duck period.<\/p>\n
She argued that calls to create a commission simply would take more time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a hopeless believer in democracy, but oftentimes it\u2019s very hard to be deliberate in democracy, and it takes a lot of time, and so that\u2019s just the only thing I want to add,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike, I completely get it, and I understand and having commissions certainly are better for public consumption, but the public has always been upset about any raises no matter how the raises have come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilman Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn), who chaired the hearing, seemingly tried to get ahead of negative press by slamming Mayor Eric Adams. <\/p>\n
Adams, he noted, had unilaterally signed a personnel order in 2024 granting all managerial staff retroactive pay increases.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are his political appointees,\u201d Restler said. \u201cDo you think it\u2019s appropriate for the mayor to give his political appointees a $2 billion salary increase that got significantly less scrutiny than today\u2019s hearing?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They got a rise out of their raise. Good government watchdogs raked City Council members over the coals…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":452594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,5310,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,12894,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-452593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-city-council","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-taxpayers","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-us-news","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115733409585165436","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}