Members of the San Diego City Council voted 5-3 Monday to increase their salary from $75,386 to $93,485 annually, but the increase won’t go into effect until January of 2009, after four new council members have been elected.
The council also voted 5-3 to raise the mayor’s salary from $100,464 to $130,000 on Jan. 1, 2009. Mayor Jerry Sanders already only accepts $36,000 of his salary because he is eligible to collect a pension as a 26-year employee as a San Diego Police Department officer and chief.
Sanders could veto the salary increases, but the council could override his veto with five votes they already have. The council also voted to disallow all car allowances in the same vote that was in a motion by Jim Madaffer and seconded by Tony Young.
Also voting in favor of the raise were Council President Scott Peters, Toni Atkins and Benjamin Hueso. Opposing the raises were Kevin Faulconer, Brian Maienschein and Donna Frye. The second terms of Madaffer, Peters, Atkins and Maienschein end this December and they will not get the raise.
“The previous council supported the raises for when we would serve,” Atkins said before the vote in urging others to think of the future City Council.
Peters did not accept the last salary increase in 2002, and his pay was $71,522. Pam Hardy, the communications director for Peters, said Peters donated part of his salary to his district office budget for the last two years, so his take-home pay is actually $40,747 before taxes.
Faulconer made a motion that the council not accept any raise, which was seconded by Maienschein. The council voted 4-4, which meant it failed. After Madaffer made his motion for the increase, Peters provided the fifth vote that was necessary for it to pass.
“I did know the salary when I ran for office. It’s appropriate for me to refuse the raise today,” said Maienschein, an attorney.
Both he and Peters are running for city attorney, a position that pays $195,000 annually.
The council voted after hearing a presentation by attorney Deb Pedersdotter, head of the Salary Setting Commission that voted Jan. 30 for higher increases than the council passed. The commission holds hearings every two years on the subject, but the last raise the council voted for itself was in 2002.
Also speaking in favor of the raises was commission member Robert Ottilie, an attorney, former council candidate and 2006 chairman of the Mission Bay Park Committee.
“I’m an attorney. We pay legal secretaries more than you are paid,” Ottilie said to the council.
Pedersdotter said she has urged higher salaries for 10 years as head of the commission and felt frustrated the council didn’t pass them.
“I’d really like you to do your job,” she said.
Pedersdotter said council members have talked about how uncomfortable it is to raise their own pay and how it is a tough vote.
“Certainly your salaries are not the only tough vote you make,” she said.
The Salary Setting Commission shared a list of salaries that other council members make in major cities, and San Diego is among the lowest.
Council members in Los Angeles and New York City earn $178,789 and $112,500 respectively. Mayors in L.A. and New York make $232,425 and $195,000 respectively. Council salaries in Chicago and Philadelphia are $98,125 and $98,000 respectively, while their mayors earn $216,210 and $186,044 respectively.
San Diego County supervisors earn $137,318 annually, as their pay is tied to a portion of what Superior Court judges make. The mayors of San Francisco and Oakland make $233,000 and $183,395 respectively.