{"id":8233,"date":"2024-01-12T01:20:34","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T02:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=8233"},"modified":"2024-01-12T03:00:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T03:00:03","slug":"milwaukee-city-leaders-eying-15-pay-hike-for-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=8233","title":{"rendered":"Milwaukee City Leaders Eying 15% Pay Hike for Themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/milwaukee-pay-raises\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Corruption<\/p>\n

(The Center Square) \u2013 Less than two weeks after Milwaukee\u2019s new sales tax took effect, city leaders are looking to spend some of that money on pay raises for themselves.<\/p>\n

A city council committee approved a 15% pay raise for the mayor, city council members and top city workers like Milwaukee\u2019s police and fire chiefs.<\/p>\n

“The approval of these recommendations helps us move past being a stepping stone for other opportunities and instead a choice destination,” Milwaukee Employee Relations Director Harper Donahue IV told city council members.<\/p>\n

The pay raises would bump Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson\u2019s salary to more than $169,000 a year. The raises would also increase the base pay for city council members to more than $84,000 a year.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee\u2019s police and fire chiefs would see their salaries jump to a little less than $200,000 a year, while the city\u2019s public works boss would make more than $208,000.<\/p>\n

The city estimates the raises will cost $1.8 million for the rest of 2024, and at least $2.8 million each year going forward. There is a provision in the pay raise proposal that would guarantee elected officials a 3% raise each year, starting next year, unless frontline city workers get a smaller raise.<\/p>\n

Alderman Michael Murphy said city leaders have been making the same salary for the past 15 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe there should be an increase for elected officials. I don\u2019t believe the number 15 is appropriate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Alderman Scott Spiker said Milwaukee\u2019s mayor didn\u2019t mention anything about the pay raises when he pitched a new 2% sales tax for the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just asked for a sales tax and now you\u2019re going to increase salaries for not just electeds but the folks who are most well compensated,” Spiker added.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Milwaukee\u2019s mayor said he supports the raises, as does city council President Jose Perez.<\/p>\n

“I want the city to be competitive, I don’t want to lose talent to other municipalities and even to the private sector, but with any increase I think it’s only natural, it’s pertinent for us to also increase accountability and fix the systems that are in place that prohibit the best service for our constituents,” he said.<\/p>\n

The pay raise proposal now goes to the full city council for a vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/milwaukee-pay-raises\/ (The Center Square) \u2013 Less than two weeks after…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":7020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8235,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233\/revisions\/8235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}