City Council Wants Additional $10G Added To Wage Hike Proposal
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- New York City Council members are preparing to vote on a proposal to increase their wages in exchange for a ban on outside employment.
The proposal would boost council members' salaries to $148,500 -- a $36,000 raise from their current $112,500 a year paycheck.
An independent Quadrennial Commission recommended a $26,000 raise last year, but City Council members are advocating for an additional $10,000 raise.
With the salary jump, council members would be considered full-time workers, and would be required to give up any other forms of employment, 1010 WINS' Carol D'Auria reported.
Richard Schwartz, who led an independent commission on the proposed salary increases, testified for two hours Wednesday in support of the raise.
"These proposed actions by the Council are extremely important reforms that will improve the Council," Schwartz said.
Mayor de Blasio said he was in support of the pay increase proposal.
"In terms of what they put for in compensation, I think they've made a good case for it, de Blasio told WCBS 880's Rich Lamb. "I'm going to certainly wait to see what the final vote is and then we'll discuss it but I think they've made a good case given the magnitude of the reforms that they're undertaking."
De Blasio's salary would rise by 15 percent, or more than $33,000, from $225,000 to $258,750 under the recommendations. But de Blasio has said he will not accept a raise this term.
The dramatic rise in recommended pay raises sparked suspicion from the pedicab industry, with some making claims that politicians are pushing them off the street as a way of engineering pay raises by voting in favor of de Blasio's hotly debated horse carriage proposal -- which is also set to go to vote this week.
But Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito said on Tuesday that the scheduling of votes is purely coincidental.
"This is an issue of timing. There's been a lot of conversation on both of these issues," she said, "So we're not hiding anything. We're very transparent and accountable."
This would be the first salary increase for City Council members in 10 years.
The committee will vote on the salary hike on Friday.
