City Council Members Get a $13,000 Raise--by Default

Los Angeles City Council members who received a temporary 12.5% raise July 1 will be able to keep the higher salary for at least another year as a coincidental byproduct of an action by the state Legislature, officials said Friday.

The city charter ties council salaries to the pay of Municipal Court judges. In June, the Legislature gave the judges a raise from about $97,000 to $110,000 annually.

The raise by the state legislation was actually aimed at the attempted consolidation of pay scales for Municipal and Superior Court judges. The raise was due to expire Jan. 1, 1999 because it was expected that the consolidation would have been approved by then. “When it was recognized that this unification process was taking a little longer to complete, the pay [raise] was extended until Jan. 1, 2000,” said Lynn Holton, a spokeswoman for the state Judicial Council.

Gov. Pete Wilson recently signed the bill into law and, as a result, the extension also applied to the salaries of Los Angeles City Council members.

The $110,000 is the highest annual salary paid to any city council member in the country.

The city controller receives 10% above the pay of Municipal Court judges and the city attorney receives 20% more, according to the city charter.

The news was welcomed at City Hall, but critics were bothered that City Council pay is based on arbitrary actions unrelated to the city, such as court consolidation.

“We’ve been opposed to the system from the beginning,” said Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. “We strongly believe the council should be accountable to the voters for their pay. As it is, all the voters can do is watch. We have no control.”

However, city officials note that Los Angeles voters created the link to the judges salaries in 1990 when they approved Measure H, an ethics reform package.

For that reason, Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the northwestern San Fernando Valley, is not concerned with the way he received his raise, said his spokesman, Ali Sar.

“The voters have spoken,” Sar said. “As long as someone else is doing it, he’s comfortable with that raise.”