After months of debate over how much members of the San Antonio City Council should be paid, a plan to nearly double their salaries starting in June of next year was effectively batted down this week.
A commission Mayor Ron Nirenberg assembled to look at the issue is recommending raising council pay from $45,700 per year to $80,000 per year — a number they arrived at after plans for salaries as high as $125,000 were panned by members of the public.
But when the Charter Review Commission’s final recommendations were presented to the council for the first time Wednesday, Nirenberg, who will be termed out of office before the changes could take effect, was the first to quash the idea.
“With regard to City Council compensation, I can’t say that I immediately agree with an immediate pay raise at that level,” said Nirenberg, who’d asked the commission to index the salaries and make them more accurately reflect the city’s cost of living.
Instead, members of the commission went in a different direction. They interviewed former council members about the job’s time commitments and responsibilities and sought to craft salaries they felt were more appropriate for the workload.
“We went through a very detailed analysis… to arrive at a re-baseline of City Council compensation,” said commission co-chair David Zammiello, a workforce development expert who argued that the pay should reflect the role’s management responsibilities.
While most council members believe the pay should be increased, rejecting the commission’s loftier-than-expected recommendations could soon put the onus on themselves to determine a fair salary.
Nirenberg’s office is tasked with sorting through the council’s feedback and presenting options for the council to debate when it returns from its July recess.
Council’s current salaries were approved by voters in 2014 to match the area median income (AMI) at the time. But no language was included to automatically update the salaries with the AMI, which is now about $62,000 for a single-person household.
Nirenberg said Wednesday that simply tying council pay to the city’s AMI would provide future councils an incentive to raise the median income for all residents.
Yet even as the city has undertaken a massive workforce training program, that number actually fell for a family of four this year.
Another option would be indexing the salaries against the AMI but for a larger family.
The average San Antonio family relies on a single income to support three or four people, said Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), a proponent of that approach.
“People my age are having families, or they’re adopting a lot of pets, and I don’t see an immediate path for starting a family while I’m on council,” said McKee-Rodriguez, who is 29 years old. “That’s a sacrifice that we would be asking many members of our community to weigh against the opportunity to serve.”
Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran (D3) suggested the city look at other forms of compensation for council members, such as retirement benefits.
“Eight years of no retirement at the age that I’m at is significant,” said Viagran, who is 51. “So I think we need to talk about that.”
The council has until Aug. 19 to approve any proposed city charter changes that would go before voters on the Nov. 5 ballot.
