A proposal to raise the salaries for Atlanta’s mayor, 16-member city council, and nine-member board of education — and to make the city council and school board positions full time — drew mixed reactions from Atlantans whom Atlanta Civic Circle interviewed along the Beltline this week.
Cabbagetown resident Elena Paulsen, 51, said the increases feel large, but she added that her own city council member, Liliana Bakhtiari “works her a— off.”
“I feel like maybe the mayor’s [raise] is too much,” she said.
The mayor’s salary would jump 33.7%, from about $203,000 to $271,000. Council members are currently paid $72,360 for the part-time job, which would jump to $127,500 as a full-time position. Salaries for Board of Education members would more than double, from $30,000 to $70,000, under the proposal to make their positions full-time.
Paulsen, like several other Atlantans, was receptive to the big raises for city council members, as long as their jobs were made full-time. “I think that there’s too much of a ruling class — and having government positions being a part-time gig excludes so many people from the process,” she said.
Like Paulsen, Candler Park resident Marissa Evans, 31, said the mayor’s salary feels excessive. “Why is the mayor making more money, when the streets are falling apart and there’s a major homelessness issue in this city?” she asked.
All the Atlantans interviewed said that if elected officials’ salaries were going up, so should compensation for the lowest-paid city employees, given the high cost of living in Atlanta. The minimum wage for city employees is currently $17.50 per hour.
“I think that’s a pretty big discrepancy,” Evans said. ”Are the other people getting a raise too?”
According to the MIT living wage calculator, the minimum liveable wage for a single adult with no children, working full-time, in Atlanta is just shy of $26 per hour.
Along with making the city council and school board positions full-time, the sizeable proposed pay increases are in response to the sharp rise in the cost of living, particularly for home prices, in Atlanta, according to the Atlanta City Council’s Elected Officials Compensation Commission.
The Compensation Commission proposed the following salary hikes in a presentation to the Committee on Council on Nov. 4:
• Mayor: $202,730 → $271,000 (+33.7%)
• Council president: $74,400 → $132,500 (+78%)
• Council members: $72,360 → $127,500 (+76%)
• Board of Education chair: $31,000 → $80,000 (+158%)
• Board of Education vice chair: $30,500 → $77,500 (+154%)
• Board of Education members: $30,000 → $70,000 (+133%)
Compensation Commission chair Quinton Washington said it primarily based its recommendation on the rising median home price in Atlanta, which is now about $400,000, and the salaries and benefits for similar employees in peer cities of Atlanta’s size.
For the mayor’s proposed pay hike, it also looked at salaries for CEOs of companies with a similar number of employees of the city of Atlanta, which has about 9,000 people on the payroll.
One rationale for the salary increases was for board of education and city council members to afford a home in the city of Atlanta, while working full-time.
“We wanted to make sure, if people wanted to serve in an elected capacity, that they would be able to do so at a salary that would allow them to be able … to buy a place in the city of Atlanta,” Washington said. in his remarks to the committee. That includes single parents raising children, he added.
Washington noted that most city council members do not have a second job, even though they are only paid for a part-time position.
Some Atlantans, however, said city council positions should stay part-time and council members should be able to pursue other sources of income. “You can do whatever you want, a side hustle,” said Gavin T., who declined to give his last name. “I mean so long as they’re not using their political influence,” said the 25-year-old bartender, who lives in East Atlanta Village.
The last time the mayor and council members received pay raises was in 2021. If adopted, the proposed new raises would take effect in 2026.
Claire Becknell contributed reporting to this story.