Photo: Courtesy of Mayor Michelle Wu
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu vetoed a pay raise proposed by the City Council for her and councilors on Monday. Mayor Michelle Wu sent a letter rejecting the City Council's proposal, asking them to adopt her original recommended pay raise saying the amount they proposed was too high of an increase.
In August, Mayor Wu sent a letter asking for a raise that would increase her salary from $207,000 to $230,000 and councilors' salary from $103,500 to $115,000. On October 5, Boston City Council voted unanimously to raise Mayor Wu's annual salary to $250,000 and councilors to $125,000.
In the letter on Monday, Mayor Wu said the reasoning for rejecting the proposed increase was that elected officials should have a pay increase that correlates with the city's workforce.
Photo: Courtesy of Mayor Michelle Wu's Office
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"Like all workers, our elected officials should receive salary increases, but they should square with the increase that our frontline workers have received and are receiving in the contracts that we continue to settle. Respectfully I urge this Honorable Body to adopt our original recommendation," Mayor Wu said in the letter to the City Council.
She also stated that when the administration took office in 2021, every collective bargaining agreement with Boston unions had expired, causing many people to work on the frontlines of the pandemic without a pay raise since 2019. Mayor Wu said the administration worked to settle those agreements causing the majority of the city's workforce to work under contract. Receiving an increase that high would not be fair to the city's workforce.
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