Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : City Council Approves 11.1% Raise for Itself

The five-member City Council has voted itself an 11.1% raise to take effect after the city’s April, 1994, election, although council members who voluntarily have been taking reduced pay will continue to earn less than the maximum permitted by state law.

In a 4-1 vote Thursday night, with Councilman David Myers dissenting, the council voted to increase the mayor’s salary from $900 to $1,000 a month and to boost the other four council members’ salaries from $540 to $600 a month. Myers had opposed the increases.

The action will only restore future council salaries to the rate that state law had permitted them to be between April, 1992, and April, 1994. And the council will not make use of a provision in state law that would permit a $661.50 council salary after April, 1994.

The council has been taking lower salaries for the past year because of tight finances that curtailed city employee pay raises and forced three rounds of employee layoffs in 1991 and 1992. Council members Thursday said they want to continue that practice.

Because the council had already been earning less than the state maximums, an increase from the current $540 council salary to the $661.50 amount that state law would permit next year would have amounted to a 22.5% increase--something none of the council members wanted to do.

State law as of 1992 permitted $600 maximum council salaries for general law cities with populations of 75,001 to 150,000. The law allows cities with separately elected mayors, such as Palmdale, to receive a larger but unspecified amount.