Committee Suggests Salary Raise For Jamestown Council, Mayor

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JAMESTOWN, NY (WNY News Now) – The Jamestown Salary Review Commission has recommended that the City Council, Council President, and Mayor, need a salary increase. 

The committee suggested that the council get a raise from $5,000 to $7,500 dollars, the President from $6,000 to $9,000 dollars, and the Mayor to get an increase in salary from $72,000 to $80,000 dollars.

Members, including Tage Hall spoke on how this pay raise is long overdue.

“Comparatively even to our area, it’s underpaid,” explained Hall. “We all kind of came to that agreement that these positions are certainly underpaid. So, we took that seriously and we believe that the time is right.

The council has not had a salary raise since 1984, and the Mayor since 2008.

Corporation Council, and commission member Elliot Raimondo also spoke on what their salaries should look like if it kept up with inflation.

“Just with inflation city council members, if we were paying them with inflation would make $14,000 dollars today, as well as have city health care,” stated Raimondo. “Obviously the city council does not have city health care, and they’re not making $14,000 dollars. The Mayor would be at $101,000 if we kept up with inflation throughout all of these years.”   

If passed, these pay raises will not take place immediately. Instead it would be applied at the beginning of the next term in January of 2024.

“These salaries, and these numbers will not go into effect until later on,“ explained Councilman Jeff Russell. “It will affect no one in this room, we won’t be voting on giving ourselves a raise per say. These numbers will only take effect after election cycles, if people are voted back in, or new people are voted in. Then those raises, if they voted on and they come to fruition, they would impact those new members.”   

While the council had to hear from the committee by the end of the year, they did not have to vote on the recommendation right away. And from the talks of the council, there will be talks and a possible vote in January of 2023.