El Paso City committee recommends pay raise for reps, mayor

The City’s Ad Hoc committee is recommending raises for council members and the mayor.

Right now a council member makes $29,000 a year, the recommendation is $39,000. The mayor makes $45,000, the committee recommends raising it to $55,000.

The idea is a rep can’t live off of less than $30,000 dollars a year.Of course, some would say they’re public servants what they do is volunteer work.

“This is not a part-time job,” said District 4 Rep. Emma Acosta. “This is a full-time job.”

Acosta said each city rep has 82,000 constituents to serve. She says reps have numerous meetings, with people, with neighborhood associations, with commissions or boards they serve on. And every meeting comes with lots of documents to study up on.

“I believe that if you pay them an adequate salary you will see more of those individuals and the younger generation running for those positions,” Acosta said.

The theory is, only retirees or people with other jobs, such as OB/GYN Michiel Noe, can afford to serve the public. This in turn could mean constituents and pressing issues aren’t getting all the attention they deserve.

“That expectation varies from voter to voter,” said committee member David Thackston.

A handful of members of the ad hoc committee expressed some hesitation with asking voters for raises on the same ballot they’re asking to cut council’s four monthly meetings to two.

“I think we should put a clause in the charter that representatives and they mayor shall or are expected to be full-time reps,” said committee member Enrique Moreno.

Although it may be impossible to legally request council reps work full-time, the feeling on the dais was that the reps deserve more.

“I would really want to raise the salaries more because $39,000 is not what I consider a full time salary,” said committee member and former city manager Joyce Wilson.

Council will takes the committee’s recommendation in mind when deciding whether to put this on the ballot. The raise wouldn’t affect Mayor Oscar Leeser. He donates his salary to a different charity every month.