Council, the Mayor, Other Top Officials to Get 5% Pay Hike

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved a routine 5% pay increase for its members, the mayor and other high-ranking officials.

Acting on the recommendation of the city’s official Salaries Authority, the council approved unanimously, and without discussion, 5% pay hikes for each of the next two years for themselves, Mayor Tom Bradley, Controller Rick Tuttle and City Atty. James K. Hahn.

The move comes at a time when the mayor’s financial affairs are under investigation and various city officials are calling for changes that could dramatically increase the salaries of elected officials, while prohibiting them from receiving outside income.

Because of a City Charter amendment approved in 1972, the maximum pay raise the salaries commission can recommend--and council members can receive--is 5% annually.

Some Objections

However Councilman Michael Woo, who with council members John Ferraro and Marvin Braude has proposed a ban on all outside income for elected officials, acknowledged that some of his colleagues did have problems with what they see as incremental pay hikes.

“There is concern that over the last 10 to 20 years, the incomes of the council members have not kept up with inflation,” Woo said. “One council member made the comment to me the other day that a student fresh out of law school makes a higher salary . . . than a member of the governing body of the city of Los Angeles.”

At present, council committees are considering recommendations made by the salaries authority last month that would raise the pay of various elected officials a minimum of 32% over the next three years, as well as banning them from having outside employment.

With the exception of government boards and agencies, the proposal would prohibit Bradley, Tuttle, Hahn and all council members from accepting outside payment for their services. However, their salaries would increase 5% in each of the next two years, and a minimum of 22% during the third.

The salaries authority, a citizens panel required by law to make biannual recommendations on pay increases, also proposed taking the raises out of the council members’ hands and linking them, instead, to those granted by the state Legislature to Municipal Court judges.

The recommendations, now being heard by the council’s Governmental Operations and Charters and Elections committees, would have to be approved by the council, the mayor and the electorate before taking effect.

Ballot Prospects

Ferraro said it was too early to guess whether the panel’s suggestions will reach the ballot.

Referring to a special panel set up by Bradley to rewrite the city’s ethics code, Ferraro added, “We should wait until the mayor’s ethics committee submits its report and that probably won’t be until September.”

The proposal by Ferraro, Woo and Braude does not address a significant pay increase for elected officials, though Woo said such a provision would make sense if all outside income were banned.

The reforms are being considered by the Governmental Operations Committee.

Under the raises approved Wednesday, Bradley’s annual salary will go from $97,654 to $102,537 for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. The city attorney will get $87,156, up from $83,006, while salaries of the 15 council members and controller will rise from $58,592 to $61,522.