Brewer on the Quadrennial Commission and 10-Year Salary Gap
Brewer explains the Quadrennial Advisory Commission framework for reviewing elected official salaries and notes the 10-year gap since the last raise, the longest in 40 years, due to failures by Mayors de Blasio and Adams to convene commissions.
Elected official pay is set up by local law, but under our
our city's administrative code, the mayor is required to appoint a commission to review the compensation levels of elected officials every four years and make recommendations to the council.
The design and function of this quadrangular commission is meant to create regularity
in the review of elected official salaries.
However, with the exception of the DAs, as I said earlier, the last time city elected officials received a raise was back in 2016.
Mayor de Blasio failed to impanel the required commission in 2020, maybe because of the pandemic, who knows, and Mayor Adams subsequently declined to convene one in 2024, although Mayor Bloomberg didn't do much either.
This 10-year gap is the longest that city officials have gone without a raise in the 40 years since the commission's
framework has been in place.
Over that time, salaries of New York elected officials have failed to keep pace with inflation and with the salaries of elected officials across the country.
Legislators in other places like Los Angeles, although Los Angeles, I was on the board of the National League of Cities, so I got to hear a lot from other cities.
LA has a completely different system.
They do get paid more, but they are stronger.
It's a weak mayor.
There are only nine members in LA.
But Chicago has the same number, 51 members, and much smaller.
Smaller, they get paid more.
And Philadelphia definitely gets paid more and definitely smaller.
All those cities have much smaller budgets and smaller workforces.