City Councilor Matt O’Malley, who represents most of Jamaica Plain, said last week he does not support his colleagues’ proposal to raise the salary for Council members by 29 percent, calling it “too high.”
A majority of the council approved the pay raise this week, with O’Malley among those voting against it.
City Council President Bill Linehan unveiled a proposal last month that would bump the councilors’ salaries from $87,500 to $112,500 annually. The last time the council received a raise was in 2006. After Mayor Martin Walsh threatened to veto that raise, according to the Boston Globe, it was reduced to $107,500 a year. Walsh could still veto the approved raise, but the council can vote to override him.
“It is too high, both in dollar amount and in percentage,” O’Malley said in a Gazette interview at the Jamaica Pond on Oct. 3, where he was attending a press conference about the recent robberies there.
He said going forward, he would like to see raises for councilors tied to the indexing of the median income of Bostonians. O’Malley said that that is similar to how the state Legislature handles pay raises, as legislators’ salaries go up or down every two years depending on the average income of residents in the state.
City Councilor Charles Yancey, who represents the Woodbourne section of Jamaica Plain, did not respond to a request for comment. He voted in favor of the pay raise.