(The Center Square) – The New York City Council is moving ahead with a plan to give the city’s top elected officials 18.2% pay raises and tie “automatic” increases to the rate of inflation.
The proposal, filed by Councilwoman Nantasha Williams, a Queens Democrat, would boost rank and file council members’ annual pay from $148,500 to $172,500 and raise the mayor’s pay to $350,000 from the current $258,000 with benefits. The legislation would also increase pay for the city’s comptroller, public advocate and other top elected positions.
A provision of the bill would allow for an “automatic pay adjustment” at the start of the next mayoral term to align their compensation with changes in the Consumer Price Index for the New York-Newark-Jersey City area, or by 8.25%, whichever is lower.
Collectively, the pay raise bill would increase costs for the city’s taxpayers by $2.6 million in the next fiscal year.
“Being an elected official in New York City is a challenging and demanding 24/7 job,” Council Member Gale Brewer said Tuesday during a hearing before the Council’s Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation, which is considering the legislation. “If salaries are too low, only wealthy individuals will be able to run.”
If approved, the pay raises would take effect 45 days after becoming law, but the bump in pay would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2026, according to the council.
Both Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council President Julie Menin have previously said they would not take a pay increase if the council approves the plan.
The pay raise plan is based on a recent report by the Quadrennial Advisory Commission, which cast the pay bump as a cost-of-living adjustment instead of a regular salary hike. The report’s authors said the city needs to keep the compensation competitive to attract new candidates.
Council members haven’t had a raise since 2016, when their pay increased by more than $30,000 per year. They are among the highest-paid city councilors in major U.S. cities, dwarfed only by Los Angeles and Chicago, according to published data.
The New York area saw inflation rise 31% between 2016 and 2025, the commission said, underscoring the need for a pay adjustment for the city’s top elected officials.
Good government groups are backing the pay raise proposal, saying it would help attract new candidates for the elected jobs and reduce political corruption.
“We think it’s important that our elected officials have competitive salaries,” Grace Rauh, executive director of Citizens Union, said in testimony Tuesday. “One, it attracts stronger candidates. Two, it ensures that we don’t only have independently wealthy New Yorkers who are running for office. And three, it serves against any potential corruption.”
But Rauh and other government watchdogs said they oppose the automatic increases, warning that it could undermine the independent commission process.
Last year, the Council considered legislation that would have raised salaries by 16% without approval from an independent commission. That plan drew pushback from fiscal watchdogs.
