City Councilor Matt O’Malley voted against a measure giving councilors a $20,000 raise during a meeting Oct. 8. Despite his no vote, the measure passed with a 9-4 tally.
“It’s a little disappointing,” O’Malley, who represents most of Jamaica Plain, said in a Gazette interview. “It’s still too high.”
City Council President Bill Linehan unveiled a proposal last month that would have bumped the salaries from $87,500 to $112,500. But the increase was eventually reduced to $107,500.
Councilor Charles Yancey, who represents parts of Forest Hills and Woodbourne, voted in favor of the raise.
Mayor Martin Walsh has 15 days from Oct. 8 to either sign the measure or veto it. He had not acted by the Gazette’s deadline.
O’Malley had co-sponsored a measure with At-Large City Councilor Ayanna Pressley that would have increased the annual salary for the council by $7,000 and tied any future raises to the indexing of the median income of Bostonians. That measure failed, as the two sponsors were the only council members to vote for it.
O’Malley said that measure was similar to how the state Legislature handles pay raises. Legislators’ salaries go up or down every two years depending on the average income of residents in the state.
“I don’t know,” he said about why the measure had no support. “I was surprised.”
He said it would have been “a cleaner approach going forward” to the issue of pay raises. He said there needs to be “a plan to remove the power of raising salaries from the body who stands to benefit from it.”