Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s veto of the City Council’s outrageous 21% wage hike units up a contentious and shocking energy wrestle between the favored, progressive mayor and her former colleagues.
The Council, led by President Ed Flynn, voted 13-0 to approve its personal pay elevate and now can simply override Wu’s veto — which one high councilor has urged will occur.
Good for Wu for standing up in opposition to this blatant cash seize by Boston elected officers. It was really Wu who provided an preliminary 11% pay hike to councilors, however they determined that wasn’t sufficient.
But it seems the Council doesn’t care how dangerous it seems to be optically to be voting themselves a pay hike whereas different metropolis employees and residents earn far much less with a lot decrease pay raises. Some clueless councilors needed a fair larger pay hike than the one they authorised.
“I don’t see the councilors going backwards,” a defiant Ways and Means chair Tania Fernandes Anderson mentioned, complaining she needed to work nights and weekends.
If the grasping Council goes forward with the override, will probably be a serious in-your-face slap at Wu, a former metropolis councilor herself who has loved a largely bump-free experience in her first yr as mayor.
This shouldn’t be a case of progressive vs. moderates — it’s a easy energy play for increasingly more cash for the Council, who solely have to indicate up as soon as per week for a gathering. But it might develop right into a wider rift that impacts her relations with the council going ahead.
It’s the second time Wu has needed to rebuff the Council — the primary one was when she vetoed a $13 million minimize from the police finances. Councilors then did not override that veto.
The pay hike would go into impact after the following municipal election in January 2024, nevertheless it’s uncommon for sitting metropolis councilors to lose a re-election race so in impact they’re giving enormous raises to themselves.
Wu would additionally profit from the pay hike package deal, going as much as $250K a yr. City Councilors could be paid $125K, a 21% hike from their present $103,500 annual wage and better than many councilors get in different main cities.
“Like all workers, our elected officials should receive salary increases, but they should square with the increases that our frontline workers have received and are receiving in the contracts that we continue to settle,” Wu mentioned in her letter to the council rejecting the raises.
The large query for Wu is whether or not she’ll put her cash the place her mouth is and refuse to just accept the pay hike if she wins a second time period. If she really thinks it’s outrageous, she ought to simply say no.
And she also needs to suggest a special manner of handing out raises to high metropolis officers.
No extra sham rubber stamp compensation boards and their phony research. No extra councilors or the mayor giving themselves raises.
Create a very unbiased fee or higher but, put it earlier than metropolis voters in a referendum. Or hyperlink to efficiency targets like personal business does.
Then see how a lot the do-nothing council will get.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”