Members of the Salt Lake City Council held off Tuesday on a new round of pay hikes for themselves, but they did approve, in a split vote, additional stipends for those in leadership roles.
The City Council chair will now get an extra $3,000 annually and the vice chair, $2,000. Council members serving as chair and vice chair of the city’s Redevelopment Agency board will get an additional $1,500 and $1,000 yearly, respectively.
That will be on top of base pay for all seven council members, which now stands at nearly $53,000 after a boost of 26% over the summer in tandem with a pay hike for Mayor Erin Mendenhall.
Tuesday’s vote was 5-2, with council members Chris Wharton and Dan Dugan opposed. The council’s mixed verdict on the issue capped several months of discussions on a bigger pay bump for members that exposed similar divisions.
Supporting members said they backed the stipends as a response to rising time demands on those key agenda-setting chair positions on both the council and RDA, driven by record-breaking population increases and the rapid pace of development in Utah’s capital.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake City Council member Alejandro Puy.
“We’re growing exponentially,” council member Alejandro Puy, who represents the west side’s District 2, said in an interview, “and with that comes a lot of demand on elected officials.”
“Leadership positions require a ton more meetings, to the expense of your own personal lives and your own other jobs,” Puy later told the council before supporting the bonuses. “We’re supposed to be a part-time council that most of the time isn’t.”
Outgoing council chair Victoria Petro, who represents the west side’s District 1 and has also urged higher council compensation, said while she supported the stipends, “I’m still bummed, because I still don’t think that we’ve created something where this office is equitably approachable in the pay.”
Wharton, before voting against the measure, said he didn’t oppose the stipends but preferred to wait until the city created a formal process to analyze compensation in a larger context.
Dugan added that while he appreciated the work of council members in leadership posts, he thought the stipends weren’t necessary.
New chair and vice chair
(Salt Lake City Council) A group photo of the Salt Lake City Council. From left to right: Sarah Young, Chris Wharton, Victoria Petro, Alejandro Puy, Darin Mano, Dan Dugan and Eva Lopez Chavez.
As per tradition, the council also used its first formal meeting of 2025 to elect new officers.
By unanimous consent, Wharton was elected this year’s chair. His District 3 includes the Avenues, Capitol Hill, West Capitol Hill, the Marmalade District, Guadalupe and Federal Heights.
Wharton said he was “eager to work with my peers and our community to ensure Salt Lake City remains a thriving, inclusive and forward-thinking city with our constituents at the heart of every decision we make.”
Puy, whose District 2 spans Fairpark, Glendale, Poplar Grove and part of downtown, will serve as vice chair.
The council will choose its new RDA leadership Jan. 21, when it convenes the first RDA board meeting of 2025.
The new stipends all take effect this year.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake Council member Chris Wharton.
Council salaries, meanwhile, have been capped since January 2019 under city ordinance at a quarter of the mayor’s salary.
Over the summer, as part of the city’s 2024-25 budget, the council approved a 26% raise for Mendenhall, who took office in 2020 and serves full time, bringing her yearly pay to $211,765.
That automatically lifted pay for council members, who serve part time, on paper at least, to $52,941. The same budget gave most city employees a 5% raise.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall
When it was proposed last spring, the mayor’s office said her raise sought to address long-standing pay disparities for the leader of the state’s most populous city, in comparison to similar posts in other cities and even to members of Mendenhall’s own Cabinet.
Her spokesperson, Andrew Wittenberg, said the 26% hike represented the first market-rate adjustment to mayoral pay in at least 10 years.
Still, the salary boost and the automatic bump for council members drew opposition from some residents.
The new normal?
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Outgoing Salt Lake City Council Chair Victoria Petro.
By all accounts, last year consumed eye-watering levels of the mayor’s and the council’s bandwidth and city staff time, including intense discussions on several once-in-a-generation land use proposals, as state-imposed deadlines loomed.
The city saw substantial public debates and behind-the-scenes negotiations on creating a multibillion-dollar sports, entertainment, culture and convention district downtown around the Delta Center as well as a new mixed-use stadium district centered on Fairpark, aimed at luring a Major League Baseball team.
Prompted by the mayor’s pay boost, the council debated its own salaries and streamlined approaches to its leadership “ad nauseam,” as Puy put it, along with the option of decoupling their pay from Mendenhall’s. But those discussions have not brought consensus.
Issues around council compensation are now being eyed for further study, possibly with the input of an outside consultant.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Salt Lake City Council member Sarah Young.
Though not a supporter of higher council compensation overall, council member Sarah Young said the stipends were a chance to recognize added duties for those in leadership.
“Not just expectations for being in meetings,” Young said, “but also an increased workload in terms of communication to the rest of us on the council.”
The District 7 council member, who represents the Sugar House area, noted that the stipends align with other municipalities and the Utah Legislature, which pay extra sums to those in leadership.
In urging higher pay, Puy described compensation as an crucial equity issue, noting the challenges for average residents of working a full-time job while juggling the demands of meetings, interfacing with residents and responding to hundreds of constituent inquiries weekly.
“I’m not thinking about me, but who is going to replace me,” Puy said. “Could any of my neighbors afford the job? And the question is: Do we only want people who can afford the job?”
