Mayor Michelle Wu panned the additional wage hike that that council handed for itself as “too high” and stated she’s contemplating a veto.
“The timing of it is concerning to me, and the scale of it,” the mayor stated, calling the proposal “too high” in a radio interview on GBH. “My primary concern is that our city workers, our first responders, our frontline workers who showed up every day at tremendous risk to themselves and their families during the pandemic — some of these workers are now with an expired contract of two years, three years or more.”
Asked if she’s contemplating vetoing the measure, Wu stated, “That’s right.”
This is the most recent flip within the saga over the council’s and mayor’s salaries, which Wu in August proposed growing by about 11% within the first bump for the physique since 2018. For the council, that might have been $103,500 to $115,000, and for the mayor, who all the time makes double the council, from $207,000 to $230,000.
But after almost two months of backwards and forwards as some councilors needed to go a lot larger, Government Operations Chair Ruthzee Louijeune proposed as an alternative bumping councilors’ salaries to $125,000 and the mayor’s to $250,000, adjustments that wouldn’t go into impact till the subsequent election for every workplace.
Last week, simply days earlier than council inaction would have merely let the unique change as launched by Wu, Louijeune held a Monday listening to after which on Wednesday moved for passage of the upward-amended invoice. City Council President Ed Flynn restricted dialogue to himself and Louijeune, however finally all 13 members voted in favor in a roll name.
Multiple councilors, together with these two, stated pay additionally has to return up for rank-and-file metropolis employees, particularly for decrease earners.
Louijeune, whose workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark, had stated the upper soar was to place Boston in step with different comparable cities.
If Wu had been to veto the rise, it will return to the council for a possible override. Nine of the 13 members would want to vote for an override with a purpose to bypass a veto from the mayor, who has 15 days from final Wednesday’s bundle to both signal it or nix it. The bundle additionally contains will increase for administration officers together with police and hearth commissioners.
The council and the mayor don’t obtain yearly will increase, and their pay solely jumps after they approve one thing like this. The final time they voted on such a matter was 2018, when the physique elevated its pay by $4,000 after giving itself a $12,000 improve in 2014.
In that vein, observers, together with labor teams, panned how a lot this larger improve outpaces metropolis employees.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”