NORTHAMPTON — Should key city and school officials receive a significant pay bump come next year? That was the question that the Northampton City Council’s Committee on Legislative Matters found themselves in the somewhat awkward position of discussing on Monday.
The recommendations to increase the pay of the mayor, city councilors and school committee members comes from a report by the Elected Officials Compensation Advisory Board, shared at the May 18 council meeting. The report based its recommendations by comparing salaries across other western Massachusetts municipalities and interviews with city officials.
“Talking about the pay of elected officials is nobody’s favorite chore. It’s a fraught discussion in a lot of ways,” said Marissa Elkins, a member of the Committee on Legislative Matters, during Monday’s meeting. “But I admire very much the way [the report] handled it and the thoroughness with which they approached it.”
The recommendations, which the subcommittee ultimately agreed with, call for school committee members and trustees for Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School to receive a pay increase from $5,000 a year to $9,312 a year, and for city councilors pay to go from $9,000 a year to $16,931 a year, with the city council president position receiving $21,164 a year.
The mayor is also set to receive a significant pay bump, from $92,500 a year to $130,000 a year.
City Council President Jim Nash, who serves on the legislative committee, defended the pay increases. Nash is not seeking reelection to the city council president position for next year, and therefore would be unaffected by the pay increases.
“Nobody’s getting rich here with these recommendations,” Nash said. “The goal is for a household, for family members [of councilors], that their time spent doing the work is getting some compensation.”
If approved by the full council at its meeting Thursday night, the changes would take effect Jan. 1, after the city’s next municipal election in November. That election will feature all positions but the mayor, who is in the middle of a four-year term.
Ward 6 councilor Marianne LaBarge, who is not on the committee but attended Monday’s meeting, defended the proposed pay increase for Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra.
“She works more than 40 hours a week,” LaBarge said. “She’s not what you’d call a sit-down councilor. She’s on the go all the time.”
Ward 5 Councilor Alex Jarrett, who chairs the committee, however suggested that the mayor’s pay increase be decreased to $120,000, citing concerns about wage inequality between the highest and lowest paid full-time city employees.
“It’s not a question of how hard someone works or how much they deserve,” Jarrett said. “It’s to look at [the fact] we have lower paid employees that are not getting a wage that allows them to live in Northampton.”
Jarrett’s motion received no second from other councils however, and the pay increase for the mayor received a positive recommendation from the committee.
“It’s an important topic, and it’s something that we as a city should look at the best way to address it,” said councilor and committee member Stanley Moulton. “Arguing over $10,000 for the mayor is probably, in my opinion, not the best way to address this.”
The committee gave all other suggested pay increases a positive recommendation.
A separate ordinance calling for a cost-of-living increase in councilor pay by 2% annually in 2025 and subsequent years in which the board does not meet was given a neutral recommendation by the committee.
A final vote on the proposed ordinances will take place at Thursday’s council meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers.
Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.
