The New York City Council will vote on a sharp increase in its salaries.

The New York City Council will vote in the coming weeks on a bill to raise the city’s elected officials’ salaries by an immediate 18.2%, based on the recommendations of a salary advisory commission appointed by the city’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

If the proposal is approved, the mayor’s salary will increase from $258,750 to $305,800, the council speaker’s salary from $164,500 to $194,400, the public advocate’s salary from $184,800 to $218,400, the comptroller’s salary from $209,050 to $247,100, and the borough president’s salary from $179,200 to $211,800. and ordinary council members – from $148,500 to $175,500.

It should be noted that formally the commission does not call this an increase, but a “long overdue inflation adjustment,” pointing out that the last time wages were revised was more than 10 years ago, and since then inflation has been 31%.

If passed, the law would take effect in 45 days, but the increase would be retroactive to January 1, 2026. The cost to the city budget in the new fiscal year is estimated at about $2.6 million.

He received support at the hearing from groups that monitor the city’s governance, including Citizens Union, whose executive director, Grace Rauch, said competitive salaries attract stronger candidates and protect against corruption. At the same time, both Mayor Zohran Mamdani himself and Speaker Julie Menin publicly stated that they would personally refuse the increase – although formally the offer applies to their positions.

Opponents of this measure were outraged by the fact that upon taking office, Mamdani announced that the city budget deficit exceeded $12 billion for two years. By mid-May, in time for the June 30 constitutional deadline, the deficit had been closed—not through structural solutions, but through state aid (about $4 billion), new one-time revenue sources like a luxury property tax for non-residents, and a deferral of nearly $1.6 billion in pension contributions. Independent observers, including the Citizens Budget Commission, have warned that such “one-off” maneuvers do not solve the problem, but only delay it: the city is already projecting a new deficit of $7 billion for fiscal year 2028.