The Lemon Grove City Council unanimously approved its first pay increase since 2015.<\/p>\n
Monthly salaries for City Council members will increase from $803 to $950. The mayor\u2019s monthly salary will increase from $1,405 to $1,662.<\/p>\n
The pay hike will not go into effect until results for the 2026 municipal election are certified, as part of a government code that prevents current members from getting a raise during their ongoing terms.<\/p>\n
This means the effective date could vary. For example, the pay hike that was approved in 2015 did not go into effect until the November 2016 election was certified in January 2017.<\/p>\n
State law caps monthly salaries for council members in cities with a population below 35,000 at $950. Lemon Grove has a population of around 27,000 residents.<\/p>\n
The city was facing a financial deficit for a few years following the last pay hike, which prevented any further wage increase, Lemon Grove City Manager Lydia Romero said.<\/p>\n
Because of the city\u2019s financial troubles, prior councils had decided not to increase their monthly salaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have stabilized our finances, we have had a budget surplus these last several years, so the council had asked to bring this back,\u201d Romero said.<\/p>\n
On an annual basis, the salary increase will cost the city about an additional $10,000.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Jennifer Mendoza said the raise will not be of \u201csignificant\u201d cost to the city, noting that city leaders often attend a variety of meetings outside of their recurring sessions, such as staff meetings.<\/p>\n
Council members are also often paid stipends for attending meetings outside of their regular duties \u2014 with compensation usually ranging from $100 to $200 \u2014 such as water district, planning group or SANDAG meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of us are here because we are trying to get rich,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cThis does affect the decision of people in our community who have to devote a considerable amount of time to this job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sitting on a City Council should not be treated as a \u201cvolunteer position,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n
City leaders in Lemon Grove are compensated significantly less than those in surrounding East County cities. El Cajon City Council members are paid $2,336 a month, with the mayor making $3,380 monthly; La Mesa City Council members are paid $1,900 per month, while the mayor makes $3,800 monthly; and Santee City Council members are paid $1,983 a month, with the mayor bringing in about $3,343 per month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the least paid City Council members and mayors in the entire county, even cities of smaller sizes have higher salaries than we have,\u201d Mayor Alysson Snow said. \u201cThe market is really tough out there, so I appreciate this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lemon Grove City Council unanimously approved its first pay increase since 2015. Monthly salaries for City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":481198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,20161,1370,24349,728,50,3549,3550,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-481197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-east-county","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-lemon-grove","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-san-diego-county","18":"tag-sandiego","19":"tag-top-stories-sdut","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115811376408671528","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481197","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=481197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}