PLATTSBURGH — The City of Plattsburgh is discussing a potential 50% pay raise for all councilors, but questions remain as to how the council will be able to approve a salary increase for themselves.
“The language in the charter is crystal clear: sitting councilors cannot provide themselves a raise during their term,” Mayor Chris Rosenquest said.
“This was a change from the original charter language and added to the newly revised charter and adopted to City Code.”
RECENT EFFORT
A recently introduced local law would have increased each councilors’ salary to $15,000 — a $5,000 increase — in the New Year. Additionally, the mayor pro tem would receive an extra $500 in compensation.
Rosenquest said the resolution to adopt the law was withdrawn for the time being while they work out how they can implement the raises.
“What was introduced would have followed the Code as written now and raises would have been phased in over (the) next several years. Although that would have caused pay discrepancies over the course of two years, that approach would have adhered to City Code,” he said.
“For the council to change their pay, a different local law will need to be drafted and introduced to rewrite that section of the City Code to allow for councilors to adjust their own pay during their current term.”
Rosenquest said a permissive referendum may also have to be held in order to change the charter as it is currently written.
“Meaning if there’s enough city voters that don’t agree with that law change, they can petition other voters to have it reverted back at the next election.”
THREE-YEAR CYCLE
According to the charter, compensation for councilors shall be “established by local law, except that changes may not be effective during the term of office during which the change is approved.”
“That new language says that sitting councilors cannot give themselves a raise, which essentially means that they can only get raises when they come into the term,” Rosenquest said.”
“So that is a bit problematic, only in the sense that you can give a raise to new councilors coming in this year, new councilors coming in the year following, and then the year following after that. So it’s a three-year cycle for all the councilors to be making the same paycheck.”
This is due to the fact that each year, there are always two councilor seats up for reelection now.
At the council’s last finance meeting, outgoing Ward 2 Councilor Mike Kelly recommended possibly waiting until all councilors’ seats have gone through an election cycle before the pay raise would go into effect, possibly in 2026.
But, outgoing Ward 5 Councilor Caitlin Bopp said she wants to see raises implemented now.
“I think it should be effective for everybody immediately. That would be the most fair way. So if there’s a way to adjust that so that could be how it happens. That’s what I would propose.”
ATTRACTING PEOPLE TO RUN
Kelly also said a pay increase would go a long way in attracting more candidates to run for public office.
“I’d just like to say that whoever wrote that section of the charter was a genius when it comes to fiscal conservatism, because they knew it was going to be extremely hard to give a city councilor a raise,” Kelly said.
“And the thing that bothered me most about this is it has become a little bit difficult to find candidates in some races, and if we want to increase democracy, then we will increase councilors’ salaries to attract more people to run.”
Ward 2 Councilor-Elect Jacob Avery, who will take office in January, also supported the proposal.
“I think there’s merit to maybe … the councilors do deserve a raise,” Avery said.
“Going off that piece of 20 years without (a raise), I think there should be fundamental change in the charter.”
Ward 5 Councilor-Elect David Monette agreed.
“Maybe (even) with an incremental increase as the years go on,” he said.
THE LOGISTICTS
Additionally, Rosenquest made it clear he was not opposed to raising council pay.
“I built a pay raise into the into the budget for council pay. They felt that they wanted a bit more; they asked for more to be budgeted — no problem — that pay increase was added, based on council request. But the logistics of getting that pay raise, that’s the question right now … I believe it will take a little bit of time to resolve.”
A public hearing was held on the proposed law at Thursday’s Common Council meeting. City resident Cindy Snow was the only person to speak during it.
She agreed with the idea of the councilor’s pay being raised, as it would help attract more candidates to run, but offered a suggestion that would do it a different, possibly more effective way.
“I think what we should do is retroactively apply a CPI (Consumer Price Index) adjustment.”
FORWARD THINKING
Snow claimed if this was implemented, it would equal a $12,356 salary for all councilors today. If a councilor worked 10 hours a week, that would total about $25 an hour. But currently, councilors are working longer than that a week — something the city also needs to fix, she said.
“Write it in (the code) that at least the council would get the cost of living adjustment. That just makes sense to change the code. As long as you’re changing it, make it forward thinking,” Snow said.
“The other thing is maybe you guys should think about doing a time study to look at the time that the councilors are having to spend … to see if there’s a way that there could be a lot less time spent, because if they’re spending 30 hours a week, no one will want to be a councilor.”