The Aurora City Council plans to have further discussions this week about pay for aldermen.
The talk comes as aldermen consider how much they should be paid relative to how much work they do, and what they are paid in comparison to comparable cities.
At last week’s City Council meeting, alderman held off on further consideration of a proposal to give aldermen a 10% raise beginning in 2027. The proposal includes 5% increases each year after that for three years.
The proposal came out of the Finance Committee, which has been looking at aldermanic pay for weeks, and was based on a study by Los Angeles-based organizational consultant firm Korn Ferry which showed Aurora aldermen are paid about 44% to 54% of what City Council members are paid in comparable cities.
The idea was to give the large bump — 10% in the first year — then increases in the next three years to bring aldermen closer to where the pay should be.
The proposal was a 10% increase in 2027, taking aldermanic pay to $28,146 a year. Then the pay would increase to $29,554 in 2028; $31,031 in 2029; and $32,583 in 2030.
According to the proposal, aldermen would continue to get $90 for each meeting attended.
But Ald. Edward Bugg, 9th, said at last week’s City Council meeting that he did not think the 10% bump was enough. He said instead of a percentage, the council should raise the annual salary to $32,500 in June 2027, and then to $34,125 in June 2028.
He added that the council should not address 2029 and 2030 now, but do it in later years. He suggested the council look at pay every two years instead of every four years, as is done now.
“Coming out of COVID, a lot of towns are doing this, because we fell behind,” he said.
Bugg put his proposal in the form of a motion that was seconded by Ald. John Laesch, at large. Laesch said he “would be fine with Bugg’s numbers.”
Ald. Carl Franco, 5th, said while he could “understand where Ald. Bugg is coming from.” He said the proposal should have gone back to the Finance Committee instead of coming immediately to the full council floor.
“We need time to look at it,” he said. “The process is important.”
Bugg said a lot of the issues surrounding the increase have already been discussion by the Finance Committee. He said with the 10% bump, the council would “still be behind.”
“We’ve had a lot of this discussion,” Bugg said. “We just need to come up with a good number.”
Franco said he thinks the increase should be a percentage, not a dollar sum, similar to what the city does with city employees.
But Bugg said aldermen have gone with lump sums with the mayor’s salary, which it did eight years ago when increasing the mayor’s salary by $30,000.
Ald. Michael Saville, 6th, said he disagreed with changing compensation every two years because then it puts aldermen on a staggered schedule where not all aldermen are making the same amount.
“It’s been the policy of the council to do it so it’s fair to all,” he said.
Mayor Richard Irvin said he agreed with Bugg “on the value of aldermen” and where the pay should be.
But he argued that the issue probably should have gone through the Finance Committee, and suggested that happen “instead of rolling the dice here at council.”
Aldermen ended up sending the issue back to the Committee of the Whole, which is where they will discuss it further Tuesday.
In a separate vote at last week’s council meeting, aldermen did approve a new schedule giving the mayor only cost of living increases of 2.5% for each of the next four years, beginning after the upcoming city election in 2025.
That increase would bring the mayor’s pay to $180,825 in June 2025, then $185,345 in 2026; $189,978 in 2027; and $194,728 in 2028.
That proposal was also based on the Korn Ferry study, which showed pay for the mayor was closer to comparable cities.
Laesch and Ald. Ted Mesiacos, 3rd, both announced candidates for mayor, voted against the mayor’s increase.
slord@tribpub.com
