Brewer Questions Weisbroad on the 18.2% Figure

Well, thank you.

I think we have some questions.

I'm sure my colleagues do, too.

I have a few.

I do want to thank you for your service.

You must be the most decorated commission person in the United States of America, and you've done such a great job on every commission you have served on.

A true New Yorker, Carl White.

Feeling is mutual, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much.

You well know.

Well, really appreciate it.

I guess one of my questions, I know that you had the number that you came up with in terms of the 18.2%.

And you talked about the fact that it should be applicable to the next group, not the current.

So my guess, what I know is...

How did you reach that figure?

What was the thinking behind that figure?

And our recommendation was, given the inordinate and considerable period of time between the last recommendation for compensation and this one, that our recommendation of 18.2% across the board.

For all elected officials going back based on their compensation in 2016,

be effective as of January 2026, and that future commissions be called two years into a mayoral term.

And the recommendations of those commissions should be effective if approved by the council for the following term of the council.

So the next commission should be, in our view, called in 2028.

The recommendations.

Made within 120 days and whatever is enacted by the council would then take effect in January 2020.

30 and every four years thereafter.

We came up with our 18.2% because that represents the increase in the cost of living since January

2022, when the vast majority of current elected officials, in fact, I think just about all except for the district attorneys, commenced their first

four-year term.

I should note that the actual cost of living since the last increase was in 2016 has been significantly higher than that,

but we felt that all elected officials

took office with the understanding that what their salaries would be in January 2022.

And as you know, we have gone through a period of intense inflation, and it is on that basis that we reached our 18.2%.

And I would also just note that

While New York City is the largest city in the country, the most complex city in the country for sure,

the proposed salaries of the mayor is still less than those in some other cities, even when these recommendations are approved, as we hope they will be.

And the...

The proposed salaries of council members will still

be behind a couple of other major cities in the country, even though council members here, with the exception of Los Angeles, have many more constituents than council members elsewhere in the country.