Mayor Michelle Wu is vetoing the council’s boosted wage will increase as friction between the mayor and the council continues.
“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 wrote in a letter to the council on Monday explaining the veto of the invoice handed by town council that might have hiked their and her pay by greater than 20%, somewhat than the 11% she had proposed.
Wu wrote, “Respectfully I urge this Honorable Body to adopt our original recommendation.”
The council can override her veto on Wednesday if 9 of the 13 members vote that approach.
Wu in August had put forth a bundle of wage will increase really helpful by the Compensation Advisory Board, together with boosts to the council, the mayor and officers equivalent to the brand new police and hearth commissioners. Wu had proposed giving the council and mayor raises from $103,500 to $115,000 for the 13 councilors and from $207,000 to $230,000 for the mayor, who at all times makes double the councilors.
After almost two months of behind-the-scenes haggling over these marks with no motion by the council, the proposal was set to enter impact mechanically when it hit the 60-day mark.
But the council held a listening to about it two weeks in the past after which Government Operations Chair Ruthzee Louijeune, citing equally sized cities that pay their councilors extra, bumped the raises for the council and mayor as much as greater than 20% — $125,000 for the councilors and $250,000 for the mayor, although some councilors had advocated for it to be even larger.
The council authorised it unanimously, 13-0.
Any improve would take impact after the subsequent election cycle for every workplace, so 2024 for councilors and 2026 for the mayor. These places of work don’t get yearly will increase, however somewhat bounce upward in chunks each few years. The final hike, which was solely $4,000 for councilors, was authorised in 2018 after a $12,000 elevate 4 years earlier.
As the progressive Wu took the reins final November after her election win, watchers anticipated her and the more and more left-leaning progressive council to work in concord. But this marks the third time this yr she’s nixed a handed invoice and the second time she did so in taking an unequivocally extra conservative place than the council throughout the corridor from her.
The different such case got here throughout a contentious finances cycle, when she used her veto energy within the finances to exchange hundreds of thousands of {dollars} that the council’s progressive wing had moved to strip from the police division. Then, her veto was sustained.
The council and mayor have clashed additionally over the best way the administration dealt with the method for federal aid {dollars}.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”