Members of the D.C. Council appeared ready to pass a bill Tuesday that could raise their annual salary to $115,000.
The bill, introduced by Council Member Phil Mendelson, D-at large, and Jack Evans, D-Ward 2, also seeks to add a commission to study and make recommendations on future raises for the mayor and the council.
According to the bill, the commission’s chair would be appointed by the mayor, along with three other members. Four other members, including the vice chair, would be chosen by the council chair.
“I think it will pass,” Mendelson said of the bill before Tuesday’s meeting, which ran into the evening following a meeting of the Committee of the Whole that ran nearly six hours.
The bill must pass a second reading Dec. 19 to take effect for incoming members Jan. 2.
The bill, as well as a similar one introduced by outgoing Ward 5 Democrat Vincent Orange that would have raised council pay to about $145,000 annually, caused a stir among some District residents who balked not about the raise itself but about the way the bills were initially introduced as emergency items. Council members make $92,500 annually, a rate that was set in 1999.
The council was also expected to consider an item that would raise the mayor’s salary to $200,000 annually. Under the D.C. Code, the council chair’s salary must then also be raised to an amount $10,000 less than the mayor’s salary. Such an item has been widely expected to pass.
Several council members said in the past that they felt that such a gap between their pay and that of their leader was unfair.
Also on Tuesday, the council passed a measure that will impose “green building” standards on any District-sponsored building project starting by 2008. The standards would be phased in to include new construction by 2012.
“Passage of this law is a first step in constructing buildings that are healthier,” said Council Member Linda Schwartz, R-at large.
