Fresno City Council scraps plan to give itself 70% raises. Here’s what they’ll get now
Fresno City Council members have given preliminary approval to a dramatically scaled-back plan for raises for council members, calling for a 15% increase starting in January 2023 instead of the 69% raise proposed last week.
On a 5-2 vote, the revised plan for raises would boost council pay from the current level of $80,000 per year to $92,000, with future 10% raises to $101,200 in 2023 and to $111,320 in 2025. Council Members Garry Bredefeld and Esmeralda Soria voted against the increases.
It’s a stark contrast to the proposed increase to $135,044 per year that was introduced by a council majority last week. Council members said the reduction was a response to widespread outrage from their constituents across the city.
Thursday’s action was the first step in a process that will be finalized with another vote at the council’s next meeting on July 21.
Among the council members, the increase would apply to council members whose terms begin next January: incoming District 1 representative Annalisa Perea who is replacing term-limited Soria, District 3 incumbent Miguel Arias, District 5 incumbent Luis Chavez and District 7 incumbent Nelson Esparza.
In addition to the more modest raises for council members, the package includes bumping the pay for the council president to 12.5% more than the council members and raising the pay for the mayor to $149,500 per year in 2024, to $164,450 in 2024 and $180,895 in 2025.
Mayor Jerry Dyer, who is midway through his first four-year term, noted that the raises would not apply to his office until 2025, but said that if he is re-elected to a second term that he would decline the raise.
Chavez, who offered the amendment to the raise proposal, said he and other council members heard the public’s outrage loud and clear last week. “Oftentimes, one of the most important jobs we have is to listen,” he said.
The new proposal is based on a comparison of salaries for city council members in California’s other large cities, from about $207,000 per year in Los Angeles to about $99,000 in Sacramento.
District 2 Council Member Mike Karbassi noted that he would not receive a raise under the proposal since he is in the middle of a term. “I think when we rolled out this program, it wasn’t as well thought out as it should have been,” he said. “The original raise was just too large a raise and people expressed they wanted something more appropriate, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Bredefeld said he was voting no, even though “It’s obviously a better place than where the council was a week ago.”
“I know everybody here works extremely hard for their constituents. There’s never been a doubt in my mind about the effort and hard work that every council member puts in responding to constituencies and working hard to improve their districts,” Bredefeld added. “I’m not saying more money isn’t justified. It just seems very hefty” compared to raises offered and approved for employees.
Dyer said he was grateful to the council for their willingness to bend. “I asked in our conversations for a more responsible and gradual approach to these pay raises, something much more moderate and in line with other cities of like size in California, and you’ve done that,” Dyer said.
“I do believe the pay is commensurate with the responsibilities a council member has in this city,” he added. “This is a very complicated, complex city.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2022 at 10:50 AM.
