City Council’s big $24K pay hike is just a slice – Latest News
The New York City Council is poised to ring in 2026 by giving itself a meaty pay raise, mountaineering the wage for rank-and-file members from $148,500 to $172,500.
But wait, there’s more: That pay is the idea for the taxpayer-guaranteed, state-tax-exempt pension most council members get after they depart.
And that’s on high of the city-issued, zero-premium, zero-deductible health-insurance protection that council members — and their dependents — obtain, typically into retirement.
The time period “gold-plated” doesn’t do justice to this perks package deal. “Diamond-encrusted,” maybe?
Plans for a pay raise didn’t appear to come back up within the just-concluded election season.
But now that the ballots are counted, the cake seems to be baked: 31 of the council’s 51 members, led by Queens Councilwoman Nantasha Williams, are sponsoring the invoice.
The council aimed to go it earlier than yr’s finish — till members realized that might violate the City Charter.
So Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani might see the measure on his desk as quickly as January.
The $24,000 pay bump is justified, Williams writes, as a result of members’ duties “require full-time focus, significant managerial oversight, and constant engagement with complex issues.”
The plan means she and her colleagues will pull down double the town’s median family income, pegged at round $75,000 in 2022.
That yr, just 12% of the town’s tax filers made $150,000 or more, so council members are already among the many high eighth of native earners.
Sure, managing funds and public companies for the nation’s most populous metropolis is a big job.
But if council members are dead-set on giving themselves a fats 16% raise, they will higher justify the bump by placing some of that “focus,” “oversight” and “engagement with complex issues” to make use of.
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They ought to make long-overdue reforms to their bountiful advantages package deal (and people of future metropolis hires) to raised align with what their constituents — the people paying for these perks — get themselves.
Start with health care. As medical and drug prices rose within the final decade, the town absorbed them, with out asking workers or retirees to contribute.
The outcome: The metropolis’s worker health-care prices at the moment are twice what they have been in 2013, ballooning from $4 billion to over $8 billion.
Replicating the city-provided protection for a household of 4 on the personal market would value a minimum of $38,000 a yr.
Even state legislators pay 16% of the associated fee for his or her particular person plans, or 31% for household protection, on a vary of state-contracted plans.
Even the MTA, infamous for its beneficiant advantages, requires workers to chip in.
In the personal sector, coverage-eligible staff in Mid-Atlantic states (of which New York is the largest) pay an average of 19% towards particular person protection and 27% for household protection.
Matching New York state’s health-insurance contribution guidelines for future lively workers would trim half of the council’s raise — however within a yr it will generate significant financial savings, decreasing strain to cut different applications or raise taxes.
It would additionally give the council a stronger leg to stand on as the town faces courtroom challenges for modest adjustments to the advantages that go to its Medicare-eligible retirees.
Pensions, in the meantime, are more and more uncommon within the personal sector; just one in seven staff at the moment has entry to at least one.
There’s no good argument for City Council members performing a momentary public service to deserve an archaic benefit that was crafted for people working in authorities for an total profession — and designed at a time when people lived a lot shorter post-retirement lives.
The metropolis’s pension prices went from much less than $1 billion in 2000 to nearly $8 billion in 2012, crowding out its potential to pay for companies amid two recessions.
The state slowed some of that growth with reforms in 2010 and 2012, however pensions will value New York City $10.5 billion this fiscal yr and are anticipated to hit $11.5 billion by fiscal 2028.
That’s partially as a result of public-employee unions, particularly the United Federation of Teachers, have been slicing away at Albany’s earlier value controls, aiming to intestine them fully by permitting each metropolis and state worker to retire at age 55 with a full pension.
If they’re profitable, that might retroactively enhance pension advantages (together with for some council members) whereas jacking up the town’s prices.
A City Council actually involved about affordability and preserving authorities companies ought to lead by instance — and change its own guidelines, in order that members can no longer rack up pension credit on the public’s expense.
The state Legislature will need to enact more reforms to ease the pension burden on native taxpayers, however the council also can shift a minimum of a portion of future metropolis workers into a more reasonably priced retirement plan, akin to a 401(ok).
Given its members’ and the incoming mayor’s fixed discuss of “affordability,” it’s more important than ever for them to debate how metropolis taxpayers can afford the council’s needs — together with how a lot they afford themselves.
Ken Girardin is a fellow on the Manhattan Institute.
