FILE: Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall during a special Salt Lake City Council Meeting Nov. 28, 2019. Mendenhall declared a local state of emergency March 10 ahead of the potential spread of COVID-19. ((Spenser Heaps, Deseret News File)
SALT LAKE CITY — It’ll look awkward, as the city’s executive director put it, but Salt Lake’s part-time City Council is considering giving itself a pay raise.
Councilwoman Erin Mendenhall says the raise will help recruit successors on the council.
“I’ve had several people come back to me and say, ‘I would really would like to, but my family can’t afford for me to do that with the time that it takes to serve in office,’” she said.
Council members make $26,000 a year, but with their growing workloads, Salt Lake City executive director Cindy Gust-Jensen recommends they get up to $10,000 more.
(NOTE: Discussion on the pay raises starts at 1:10:00 in the embedded video.)
She says their pay scale dates to the 1980s.
“And it was looked at in terms of approximately ten hours per week of meeting time for the city council,” Gust-Jensen said. “And the meeting time was in the evenings.”
The council holds a public hearing on Dec. 11.