Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s reelection comes with a whopping $43,000 elevate to deliver her wage to $250,000 subsequent yr.
Wu and the Metropolis Council will each obtain pay hikes to begin off the brand new yr, because of laws handed by the Council in 2022.
Whereas the Council has seen pay hikes yearly since 2024 — with its pay leaping from $103,500 to $125,000 this January — the mayor’s 20% elevate may solely go into impact after the subsequent election for that place, in 2026, per state ethics legal guidelines.
By comparability, wage will increase for metropolis councilors began after the 2023 municipal election, when solely metropolis council races had been on the poll.
Wu will see her wage improve from $207,000 to $250,000 to kick off the brand new yr, whereas all 13 elected metropolis councilors will see a $5,000 pay hike, from $120,000 to $125,000. The mayor sometimes makes twice as a lot as metropolis councilors.
The pay will increase that might be seen subsequent yr had been a supply of rivalry on the time of the proposed laws in 2022.
The Metropolis Council opted to vote for a tiered improve after the physique’s preliminary vote to hike its pay to $125,000 beginning in 2024 was vetoed by Mayor Wu. Underneath that tiered construction, councilors noticed their salaries improve from $103,500 to $115,000 in 2024, $120,000 in 2025, and can see a remaining wage improve of $125,000 in 2026.
Metropolis Council President Ruthzee Louijeune had put ahead the $125,000 wage for 2024, in her earlier iteration of presidency operations committee chair.
On the time, Louijeune had introduced the elevate as a compromise with different councilors who had lobbied for a good greater pay hike, saying that the brand new quantity of $125,000 would put the physique according to different cities.
Wu in her veto had cited related considerations as different councilors, nonetheless, who had expressed discomfort with a few 21% pay hike when many lower-income metropolis staff don’t get that form of bounce.
Nonetheless, the $125,000 wage for 2024 was unanimously handed by the Council, and when it was vetoed, Louijeune amended a brand new proposal to incorporate the tiered will increase to realize that very same wage by 2026, as a part of a veto override.
The override handed by a 9-4 vote in November 2022, with Councilors Frank Baker, Michael Flaherty, Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy opposed. Baker and Flaherty have since left the Council, after opting towards a reelection bid in 2023, however Baker mounted an unsuccessful comeback bid for an at-large seat in final week’s election.
In August 2022, Wu had proposed elevating the council’s wage from $103,500 to $115,000 in 2024, with no additional tiered will increase, and the mayor’s wage from $207,000 to $230,000.
Finally, the council voted to bump the mayor’s pay to $250,000 in 2026. Wu will profit from the practically 21% elevate in her second, four-year time period after cruising to reelection final week.
Wu’s bid for a second time period was uncontested within the common election, after she defeated her principal opponent, Josh Kraft, a son of the billionaire New England Patriots proprietor Robert Kraft, by 49 factors within the September main. Kraft dropped out of the mayoral race two days later.
As for the Metropolis Council, all 12 incumbents who gained reelection final week will profit from a $5,000 elevate in January, as will the most recent councilor, Miniard Culpepper, who gained the one open seat vacated by disgraced former Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson.
The Roxbury-centric District 7 seat gained by Culpepper has been vacant since early July when Fernandes Anderson resigned after being convicted on federal corruption costs tied to a Metropolis Corridor kickback scheme. She is serving a monthlong jail sentence and is about to be launched on Saturday.
The 12 incumbents who will see a pay hike in January are Liz Breadon, Gabriela Coletta Zapata, Sharon Durkan, John FitzGerald, Ed Flynn, Ruthzee Louijeune, Julia Mejia, Erin Murphy, Enrique Pepén, Henry Santana, Benjamin Weber and Brian Worrell.
Coletta Zapata claimed Monday that she has secured the votes to turn into Council president for the subsequent two-year time period that begins in January, however her bid is being challenged by Mejia and Worrell.
Ought to Coletta Zapata be voted in as Council president by the physique in early January, after councilors and the mayor are sworn in, she has named Santana as her vice chairman. Each are allies of the mayor, who labored for months to get her former worker Santana, who was seen as essentially the most susceptible at-large incumbent, reelected amid a comeback bid from Baker.
No additional pay raises for the mayor or metropolis council are set to take impact underneath the 2022 laws, which means that any further wage will increase must be proposed, after which authorised by the Metropolis Council.
