Three Los Angeles City Council members don’t think they need to earn more money.

Council members Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Paul Koretz and David Ryu all waived a 2.4% salary increase for elected officials announced in August, city records show. The trio signed documents asking that their salaries remain at $184,610, rather than rise to $189,041.

Los Angeles City Council wages, the highest in the nation according to a 2011 Pew study, emerged as a major issue in several City Hall elections this year.

Several council candidates pledged to cut their six-figure salaries if elected. However, many of those candidates lost their respective races, raising questions about whether the issue would remain front and center at City Hall.

Ryu, who billed himself as an outsider in the District 4 race to represent the Sherman Oaks and Hollywood Hills region, declined to comment on why he waived the raise.

He said he’d prefer to get press for “real solid issues, not small things like that.”

Harris-Dawson wasn’t available for comment, and Koretz’s office didn’t return calls.

Los Angeles City Council members earn more than most member of Congress, who take home $174,000 a year. Council members also make more than Gov. Jerry Brown, whose salary will rise to $182,789 later this year.

The council members’ salary increases date back to 1990, when Los Angeles voters moved to set members’ wages to the compensation of municipal court judges as part of a broad package of ethics reforms.

Several years later, judges’ pay was set to those of state Superior Court judges.

Today, yearly increases in judicial salaries are linked to statewide collective bargaining agreements.

City budget officials in August circulated a memo from the Judicial Council of California, announcing the new salaries, one of a series of recent raises over the past few years.

City Council member Bob Blumenfield, who didn’t decline a pay raise, said it’s appropriate voters made the decision to tie salaries to those of judges.

“It’s beyond our control,” he said, adding that salaries “shouldn’t be a political issue.”

Some City Council members have said in previous years that they donate their raises to charities.

Councilwoman Nury Martinez declined to take a raise in 2013 and 2014, her office stated.