Two Orange County city councils were set to look at giving themselves a raise this week, and while Irvine backed off, Westminster leaders are set to discuss more than doubling their salaries.
It’s a growing debate around how much city council members deserve to be paid for their time, with some cities paying out a couple hundred dollars a month to their elected leaders while others pay over $2,000 a month for councils that meet twice a month.
At Westminster’s CIty Council Meeting Westminster, Councilman NamQuan Nguyen is pitching to increase his and his colleague’s salary from $850 a month to $1900 a month, along with their existing medical benefits.
Nguyen did not respond to requests for comment, but city staff highlighted that several cities around them pull down much larger salaries including Huntington Beach, where council members are paid at least $2,000 a month.
Right now, Irvine City Council members are only paid $880 a month despite being a larger city, a fact Irvine Councilman William Go was looking to change by giving the council a $12,000 annual raise amid a growing budget deficit before he pulled it off the agenda after pushback.
But Go says it’s a discussion that needs to be had sooner rather than later, saying the city’s low pay limits the number of people who run for office and that it was not about “personal enrichment.”
“We shouldn’t preclude candidates who can’t afford to serve,” Go said in a Thursday interview. “I want to make sure democratically we open it up to everybody.”
The money for the raise would have come out of the council’s discretionary budgets, which have quietly doubled over the past few years, letting elected leaders spend on their own staff and advertisements to the community without much public discussion.
[Read: Irvine City Council Quietly Doubles Their Personal Budgets Ahead of Deficit]
Go said he received opposition to the item because it was a “political season” from several city council campaign staff and from city staff, who asked him to delay the item until there could be a broader discussion on the city’s budget problems.
“Politically, it’s very hard for someone to address this because they want to get reelected,” Go said. “I’m not going to be selfish and say it hurts me politically so therefore I won’t try to solve the problem. It’s time somebody does deal with it.”
Under Go’s proposal, the city could have cut anywhere from 15% to nearly 40% of the council’s personal budgets, which would have saved the city nearly $800,000 a year at most.
As part of the cuts, the proposal would have given council members a raise that more than doubles their current salary of $880 a month to $1,880, or roughly $22,000 a year per council member.
“For all seven Council offices, the total annual cost of the stipend increase would be approximately $84,000,” Go wrote. “In exchange, Council office budgets would be reduced to generate overall savings and encourage Councilmembers to exercise more responsibilities.”
That shift would have made them one of the highest paid city councils in Orange County.
By comparison, Santa Ana City Council members receive a base salary of $1,000 a month, while Anaheim City Council members receive a base salary of about $1,500 a month.
That’s $12,000 and $18,000 a year, respectively, and Go noted that several smaller cities like Tustin and Buena Park pay their council members even more than what Irvine would make.
“If Tustin is getting $1,900 how is a future council member going to feel when our population is triple that of Tustin’s?” Go said. “We’re not trying to enrich anyone, we’re trying to enable people, enable democracy so we cast a wider net.”
But Go also acknowledged that an extra $1,000 a month won’t make a huge difference on who can afford to run for office in a city where the median household income is over $136,000.
“Isn’t it better to at least address it somewhat than not address it at all?” Go said.
Irvine City Council members can also receive stipends for some of the other countywide boards they can sit on and can receive free medical insurance from the city.
[Read: How Much Do OC Taxpayers Spend on Local Politician’s Health Benefits?]
The proposal comes as city leaders are grappling with a budget shortfall that’s set to increase over the next few years, one of many Orange County cities where expenses are rising faster than tax revenue.
[Read: How Rocky Are Orange County’s Municipal Budgets?]
City leaders are still questioning how they got to this point, with debates over investigations into a remodel of city hall that cost millions of dollars and other audits being suggested as they rehire an old city manager to come in and help rightsize their budget.
They’re also not the first elected leaders to say they need higher pay.
County supervisors gave themselves a 25% raise last year, and are now in the midst of a tense union negotiation where they claim there’s no money left over for the workers.
[Read: OC Leaders Praise Labor for 4th of July, Skip Raises For Workers But Not Themselves]
Santa Ana leaders have repeatedly played with the idea of moving their council from part time to full time pay, but in 2024 voters shot the idea down, with nearly two out of three people voting against it.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
