The Boston City Council voted to give itself a nice little salary bump on Wednesday afternoon. Starting in 2016, they’ll be making $107,500 a year. That’s a $20,000 raise.

The generous increase was actually $5,000 less than what City Council President Bill Linehan proposed. If the raise goes through, it will be the council’s first since 2006, when it voted to give itself a raise of $12,500.

The councillors were in the awkward, if enviable, position of deciding whether or not they should get more money. After a debate, they voted 9-4 in favor of the raise.

But this isn’t a done deal: Mayor Marty Walsh has to approve it, and said that he opposed the $25,000 raise and would not support it. He may feel differently about a $20,000 raise, however. Either way, the council can override his veto with a two-thirds vote.


According to The Boston Globe’s Andrew Ryan, Frank Baker, Mark Ciommo, Michael Flaherty, Tito Jackson, Salvatore LaMattina, Council President Bill Linehan, Timothy McCarthy, Stephen Murphy, and Charles C. Yancey voted for the raise. Matt O’Malley, Ayanna Pressley, Michelle Wu, and Josh Zakim voted against it.

Jackson, who represents District 7, argued for the raise because, he said, his salary was a “subscription to poverty,’’ and taking on the city council job resulted in almost losing his home to foreclosure. Again, Jackson’s current salary is $87,500.

Jackson purchased his parents’ home on Schuyler St. on the Roxbury-Dorchester town line in March 2007. According to Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, the purchase price was $560,000. (According to CNN Money’s home affordability calculator, assuming no down payment and a 30-year mortgage, an income of $87,500 can afford a house worth about $440,000.)

O’Malley and Pressley offered an amendment that would lower the raise to $94,673 and have future salary increases tied to Boston’s median household income. In other words, councillors wouldn’t be able to determine their own salaries again. That amendment was rejected after only its authors voted for it.

Murphy proposed the amendment lowering the raise to $20,000. He reportedly blamed the media for stirring up opposition to the raise, and said the $107,500 salary would “shut [editorial writers] up.’’ We’ll see!