On Politics: Voters, heed how vote goes on huge city pay raises

One of the jobs of the City Council is figuring out how much it should get paid.

Wait, that’s not the only job; the Council members also have to decide if they should give themselves more money. Not more money because they did a great job and everybody is talking about it, but just more money because you are still breathing and on the City Council.

To set the details, the Council has a self-appointed commission that every year tells the Council how much city officials like the mayor and others should be paid.

This exercise is now going on at City Hall.

The Honolulu Salary Commission had meetings and allowed the public to talk about it.

A report last week in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser had the details.

Not surprisingly, the recommendation is to give everybody more money. Annual salary for the mayor would go to $209,856 from its current $186,432. The head of the City Council would get a raise from $76,968 to $123,292, and a Council member’s salary would jump to $113,292 from $68,904, a 64.4% increase.

Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi and city Managing Director Michael Formby told the commission, according to the article, that “such pay hikes were necessary to recruit and retain city workers — many of whom were short-term appointees — to live and work in expensive Honolulu.”

According to Blangiardi and Formby, pay raises help keep appointive city officials on the job. That’s just the magic of a nearly 65% pay raise — it just brings out the “yes” in anyone’s spirit.

The Council is expected to make a decision by the end of next month.

Of course, this is a big jump in pay — but officials pointed out that since 2020, the salary commission hasn’t recommended any salary increases.

So far there has been scant in-depth discussion about the looming property tax increase. Honolulu real estate prices are still at record levels, meaning property valuations and the resulting taxes are also soaring. There is a basic unfairness on basing a tax not on what you need or what is planned, but on what you are able to collect. But that is the reality, not the equality, of Honolulu’s property tax.

And again, Oahu voters are allowed to watch, but not vote nor even propose another version of dealing with the property tax hustle.

So in the end, this becomes a story not about the mayor or the Council; this is about you. It is because you either voted for these city officials or you didn’t think it was important enough to vote against these politicians on the verge of getting an enormous pay increase.

If you aren’t getting a pay raise close to the Council’s nearly 65%, I can see why you might be a tad upset.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.