Boston pays Mayor Tom Menino $150,000 a year. It pays city councilors $75,000. Is that enough? Good question. And it’s not an easy one to answer, but we’re going to come to grips with it here.
The news is that the independent and nonpartisan (note: we’re not calling it non-political) Compensation Advisory Board (CAB) is recommending that the mayor and the councilors receive 16-percent raises. Not bad in a tight economy. That would put the mayor’s paycheck at $175,000 before taxes, the councilors’ at $87,500.
Estimates vary, but it appears that the average Boston household’s income is in the mid-to-high $40,000 range and has essentially kept pace with inflation. It should be noted, however, that according to a recent report issued by the Boston Foundation, all factors considered, Boston is the nation’s most expensive city in which to live. To anyone paying rent in Boston, that may not exactly be a newsflash.
When you look at cities of comparable size, Boston more or less pays its elected officials within the same range. And the recommended increases would keep Boston within that range. So there is nothing wildly out of order with CAB’s recommendations.
But when you compare what the mayor and the councilors might get with what teachers, police, and firefighters have gotten (an average of about 10 percent over contracts that vary in length from two to four years), you find that the elected officials come out ahead. And bear in mind that they received their last raise four years ago, and that was for 20 percent.
Since we’ve argued in the past that the size of union contracts place an unacceptable strain on city finances, we can’t endorse raises of the suggested size for the mayor and the council. And while private-sector wages may outstrip public-sector paychecks, very few workers in the private sector are seeing pay increases anywhere near the levels enjoyed by those financed by taxpayers. So let’s get real.
The mayor is in the unenviable position of having to push his own raise through. We suggest he show some fiscal discipline and give himself a two-to-three-percent raise, if he thinks he can afford to do even that. The idea of raising the councilors’ salaries is frankly ridiculous. While there are many dedicated public servants on the council, that body was conceived to be a part-time job. It may have the power to hold public hearings, but its only defined authority is to pass or reject the budget. When you add staff, office space, and fringe benefits, there’s already much on offer to a politically inclined individual. And when you look at the stellar crop of candidates who fought unsuccessfully for seats on the council, it’s clear that the argument that Boston needs higher pay to get better candidates is hogwash.
