Hello, hello, good morning.

Welcome to today's New York City Council hearing for the Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation.

At this time, please silence all phones and electronic devices.

If you wish to speak in today's hearing, please fill out an appearance card with one of the sergeants.

Moving forward, no one is to approach the day's.

Chair, you may begin.

Thank you very much.

So I am Gail Brewer, Chair of the Committee on Government Operations, State and Federal Legislation.

Thank you, everyone for joining, particularly interns and children.

Those are the best.

I would like to welcome elected officials, member of the public, and any city council colleagues who have joined us today, particularly Councilmember Zweig and Councilmember Wilson.

We will be hearing Deputy Speaker Williams's bill, which we are hearing as a preconsidered introduction.

It would increase the compensation of the mayor, public advocate, members of the city council, Bo presidents, controller, and district attorneys, although the DAs have a different system.

Elected official pay is set up by local law, but under our city's administrative code, the mayor is required to appoint a commission to review the compensation levels of elected officials every four years and make recommendations to the council.

The design and function of this quadriennual commission is meant to create regularity in the review of elected official salaries.

However, with the exception of the DAs, as I said earlier, the last time city elected officials received a raise was back in 2016.

Mayor de Blasio failed to impanel the required commission in 2020, maybe because of the pandemic, who knows.

And Mayor Adams subsequently declined to convene one in 2024, although Mayor Bloomberg didn't do much either.

This 10-year gap is the longest that city officials have gone without a raise in the 40 years since the commission's framework has been in place.

Over that time, salaries of New York elected officials have failed to keep pace with inflation and with the salaries of elected officials across the country.

Legislators and other places like Los Angeles, although Los Angeles, I was on the border of the National League of Cities, so I got to hear a lot from other cities.

LA has a completely different system.

They do get paid more, but they are stronger.

So weak mayor, and there are only nine members in LA.

But Chicago has the same number, 51 members and much smaller.

They get paid more.

And Philadelphia definitely gets paid more and definitely smaller.

All those cities have much smaller budgets and smaller workforces.

These stagnant wages not only affect elected officials.

For non-executive roles, an elected official salary serves as a cap on the salaries of those employees for work who work for them in some cases, keeping those salaries artificially low.

This keeps the city from offering competitive wages, which can prevent us from being able to attract the best and brightest to crucial city jobs.

I will say that staff, however, in the mayor's office and the speaker's office and maybe elsewhere is higher often than the elected officials.

Low salaries for elected officials can also negatively influence who is even able to run for office.

Being an elected official in New York City is a challenging and demanding 24-7 job.

No shit.

Excuse my French.

And elected officials should be able to support themselves and their families on their government salary without having to rely on family or other outside income.

If salaries are too low, only wealthy individuals will be able to run.

They recommended actually convening the commission every four years and altering the timing of future commissions so that they will occur during the third year of a four-year term of office rather than the first year, along with requiring that any compensation increases not take effect until the beginning of the next term.

The commission also recommended giving future commissions 120 days instead of the current 75 days to complete their work.

Additionally, the commission recommended that if salaries for the covered elected offices remain unchanged during the four-year term, they should automatically increase by 2% per year, or the actual inflation rate, whichever is lower.

This will ensure regular pay raises for elected officials.

This pro preconsidered introl that we are hearing today would codify these recommendations.

We thank the members of the commission for their service, in particular, Carl Weisbrad, Larry and Angel, and Dr.

Lillian Barrows Paoli, all friends of mine for about 40 years.

All OGs.

That's why I like them.

Before I conclude, I'd like to thank the following council staff for their work from the government operations to Harry Frazier, Eric Cohen, and Singhi Hamid, and for my staff, Schuler, Pooder, and Cynthia Horney.

Everyone in the background, I also appreciate so much.

And I don't know if we have Councilmember Williams is not here, but Councilmember Denowitz is here also.

I appreciate it very much.

So now I think we will turn it over to the committee council to administer the oath after we call it.

Read this verse too.

Oh God, Jesus.

I now open the hearing for the public testimony.

Public should know that this is a government proceeding and that the quorum will be observed at all times.

Members of the public shall remain silent at all times.

The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify.

No video or photography is allowed from the witness table.

Members of the public may not present audio or video recordings as testimony, but may submit transcripts of such recordings for the sergeant at arms for inclusion in the hearing record.

If you'd like to speak, fill out an appearance card with the wonderful sergeant at arms and wait to be recognized.

You will have three minutes to speak on today's hearing topic, although you can speak much longer if you want.

Compensation, it's a topic of the mayor, public advocate, city council, borough presidents, controller, and district attorneys.

If you have a written statement or written testimony you wish to submit, please provide a copy of that testimony to the sergeant at arms.

For those on Zoom, you may also email written testimony to testimony at council.nyc.gov within 72 hours of the close of the hearing.

Audio and video recordings will not be accepted.

And obviously, if you're here and you want to speak, you are going to be called up.

So we'd like to call up Carl Weisbrad, who was the chair of the commission.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

I just really hear the thank you for embracing our recommendations.

I just want to stress one particular recommendation, which is the importance of the council and the mayor making recommendations on compensation for the following council than the one that makes the recommendations.

And with that, I just wanted to thank you.

And I have no further statements.

We submitted our report to you, and thank you for your consideration of it.

Well, thank you.

I think we have some questions.

I'm sure my colleagues do too.

I have a few.

I do want to thank you for your service.

You must have been the most decorated commission person in the United States of America, and you've done such a great job on every commission you have served on, and you're a true New Yorker, Carl White.

Dealing is mutual, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much.

You well know.

Well, really appreciate it.

Um, I guess one of my questions, I know that you had the number um that you came up with in terms of the 18.2 percent.

Um you talked about the fact that it should be applicable to the next uh group, not the current.

So my guess want to know is um how do you how did you reach that figure?

What was the thinking behind that figure?

And and and our recommendation was uh given the inordinate uh unconscionable period of time between the last recommendation for compensation and this one, that our recommendation of 18.2 percent across the board for all elected officials going back uh based on their compensation in 2016, um uh be effective as of January 2026, and that future commissions be called uh two years into a mayoral term, and the recommendations of those commissions should be effective if approved by the council for the following term of the council.

So the next commission should be, in our view, called in 2028, the recommendations um made within 120 days, and whatever is enacted by the council would then take effect in January 2030 and uh every four years thereafter.

Uh we came up with our 18.2 percent because that represents the um uh uh increase in the cost of living since January uh 2022 when the vast majority of current elected officials uh uh in fact I think just about all except for the district attorneys uh uh commenced their first um uh four-year term.

Um I should note that the actual um uh cost of living since the last increase was uh in 2016 has been significantly higher than that, but we felt that all elected officials uh took office with the understanding that um uh what their salaries would be in January 2022, and as you know, we have gone through a uh period of uh intense inflation, and uh it is on that basis that we reached our 18.2 percent.

Okay.

And I would also just note that um while New York City is the largest city in the country, um, the most complex city in the country for sure, uh the proposed salaries uh of the mayor uh is still less than those in some other cities, even if these when these recommendations are approved, if we hope they as we hope they will be.

Uh and the uh proposed salaries of council members uh will still uh be behind a couple of other uh major cities in the country, even though council members here uh with the exception of Los Angeles have uh many more constituents than council members elsewhere in the country.

Right, thank you.

And then why would I know this was a request of council member Williams when she proposed the legislation, but um why would you make it retroactive to January?

To January 26th?

Yes.

Um the legislation that we were dealing with calls for it to be retroactive to January 26th.

Um we contemplated recommending it for July 2026, but um we felt again given uh uh the long interim between the last increase and this increase, uh this proposed increase, um uh we should respect uh uh the law is written.

Okay.

And then um obviously you recommended more time, 120 days, and I guess considered 75 in the past.

I don't even know if you had 75 days.

I don't know how much time you had.

Um, not much.

And so the question is were there things you would have liked to consider if you had more time?

We would have much.

We were extremely fortunate because uh within that 75, we did do it within 75 days.

We submitted our report exactly on the 75th day.

Um we were extremely fortunate to have been able to utilize the resources of um uh city universities uh institute for state and local governance uh to do uh uh extensive analytic work for us and um managed to attract uh a handful of other highly competent people to work on this uh with very very thin staff, basically four people other than the uh help we got from uh uh city universities institute for state and local government.

Um without the ability to have and the good fortune to have attracted that at the very beginning, we would never have been able to meet our deadline.

And usually, as you all know, uh it's it's not easy to, and it's not expeditious usually to get uh um uh resources on board um through the City of New York uh engagement process, let me leave it that way.

Right.

And then obviously we don't want uh other mayors to not convene commissions.

So you came up with a way to do that um in terms of k kicking in um a way to deal with the salary increase if in fact there is none.

So you could if you could talk about that a little bit, obviously tied to inflation.

Um and I was just wondering um hopefully this won't kick in because there'll be commissions.

But can you just talk about that a little bit?

A number of recommendations were made to us um uh to reconstitute uh uh uh who appoints members of the commission, what happens if uh the mayor does not appoint a commission, should some other elected official be able to appoint uh a commission.

We we believe strongly that uh since the mayor does control ultimately the resources of the city and the budget, the mayor should be the one to uh convene a commission, and moreover, that any alternative would probably require a charter change that would have to go before the voters.

Uh we felt that we wanted to give uh a modest incentive um to uh mayors to um meet their obligations in the future um while at the same time uh uh providing uh uh some hedge uh in case they didn't.

So that's how we came up with the formula we did.

Uh I I do have to give a lot of credit to my uh co-commissioners, uh Lillian Paley and Larry and Angelo, both of whom are very savvy uh with respect to New York City government, and um they were very helpful in in in helping us fashion this particular incentive.

It's quite a threesome, if I may say so.

Um just finally from my perspective, the salaries of staff.

So there's different kinds of staff in the mayor's office and city government and in the city council.

There's obviously many workers in both union, that's a bargaining discussion, and then there are the ones that are at, I guess, um at will, I would call them.

So in the city council, I guess my question is, because I have staff very underpaid, I think many council members do also.

The staff often of the speaker or the mayor directly in the mayor's office are highly paid.

I know the salaries of both.

So I guess my question is I don't think this commission or any commission can really address salaries of staff, but I just didn't know that came up, or is that something that we should be what do you think about that issue?

It came up in the following context.

You're you're absolutely right that the uh uh are charge and the law requires us only to look at and comment on and opine on the uh salaries and compensation of elected officials.

However, one of the factors that the law requires us to look at is um what what is called wage compression to the extent that um the salaries of elected officials compress the salaries of uh staff, um thus limiting the expertise that the uh the city can hire or that elected officials can hire.

We did look at wage compression, and we were particularly asked by the district attorneys to look at wage compression, but we found that um both in the mayor's office and in the council, and elsewhere uh in uh the offices of elected officials, there were many, many, many people who were earning a lot more than the people, the elected officials that they worked for.

And so we ultimately determined that uh wage compression was uh not a serious uh concern in terms of determining the compensation for elected officials.

I I certainly agree just as hard because individual council members, but that's more of an internal issue, both from the mayor and the city council.

I think I think you're right.

And just finally, one other question.

Around the country, I guess some cases there is uh automatic as opposed to commission.

In other words, you say, but I don't I I think here because the I guess from 89 commission was the way to go, even though it wasn't constituted.

Do you think that is a good idea as opposed to just an automatic based on whatever um criteria is brought up?

Yes, I do.

I think that uh you're you're right that some cities uh do use an automatic method of just uh increasing compensation based on cost of living or whatever other factors, but I do believe, and I think my fellow commissioners also believe that uh uh a commission that takes a hard look at this and also reflects the um uh the context of where the city is at a given time um uh is much more appropriate.

And and and many state legislatures also use a commission, as does uh as does the federal government.

And so um uh there may be instances where, for one reason or another uh a crisis um perhaps something like the time of around 9-11 or COVID or uh a similar crisis, where even though the cost of living may have temporarily spiked, um uh a commission would not recommend uh an equivalent increase in compensation because the cost of living was temporary or uh the spike was temporary, or the uh city's finances were in such terrible shape uh uh that it uh it didn't make sense to do that.

Um it uh would be a bad reflection on a whole host of other factors.

So, yes, I do think a commission is a much better idea.

That's very helpful.

Do any of my colleagues have questions?

I don't think so.

Anyone?

Okay.

Thank you very much, Carl Weisbroad for everything.

More than I can ever say.

And the next panel is Grace Rao from Citizens Union and Rachel Faust from ReIvent Albany.

And I want to thank Grace Rao's interns.

I'm very supportive of interns.

Sometimes I like them better than staff.

Okay.

True.

Thank you.

Uh good morning, Chair Brewer, uh, members of the commission.

Uh my name is Grace Rao, members of the council committee, excuse me.

My name is Grace Rao.

I'm the executive director of Citizens Union, a nonpartisan good government group that has worked to advance honest, accountable, and effective government and fair and open elections in New in New York for nearly 130 years.

I want to thank uh Chair uh the chair of the quadrennial uh advisory uh commission and the members of the commission.

Um we supported its establishment uh through advocacy and testimony because we believe periodic reviews of elected officials' compensation are essential to good government, and because we felt that the 10-year salary freeze was unsustainable.

We want to thank the council for incorporating nearly all of the commission's recommendations, including most of our own recommendations to the commission and to this proposed bill and for bringing it to the public hearing today.

We do support the bill, but uh I want to flag that we are concerned about the proposed automatic inflation adjusted salary increases as a backstop when a commission is not convened.

So I'll my written testimony has more details, um, but I'll go through some of it now.

At a high level, we support increasing all elected officials' salaries by 18.2%.

Our long-standing position is that elected officials should be well compensated.

Competitive salaries attract strong candidates, enable individuals who are not independently wealthy to pursue public service, reduce incentives for corruption, and signal the importance of public service.

The proposed increase reflects those goals, and we support it.

We also support restoring the quadrennial advisory commission cycle to the third year of the term with the next commission set to be established in 2028.

We support codifying prospective salary recommendations.

Um, and we support extending the commission's time frame from 75 days to 120 days.

On the establishment of automatic inflation adjusted salary increases if no commission is convened, we are opposed to that change.

Citizens Union does not recommend adopting the backstop mechanism proposed by the commission and incorporated into this bill.

Uh, we fully support establishing a mechanism to ensure that quadrennial advisory commissions are convened in a timely manner so that we can prevent another decade-long salary freeze.

However, we're concerned that the proposed approach would effectively eliminate the incentive to convene quadrennial advisory commissions in the future.

And we think the commission-based review process is preferable to an automatic adjustment for two principled reasons.

First, salary reviews involve qualitative considerations that cannot be captured through an inflation adjustment alone.

Don't pay attention to the thing.

Thank you.

Uh I feel free.

Um, and second, uh, pay commissions serve as vehicles for broader institutional reform, not merely salary recommendations.

In 2025, the commission's recommendations resulted in the ban on outside earned income, the elimination of council Lulus and other significant reforms.

Commissions have also advanced recommendations related to transparency and accountability.

And we're concerned that eliminating the incentive to convene commissions would diminish an important mechanism for improving government.

I finally the bill appears to provide that the automatic salary adjustment would take effect even if a quadrennial advisory commission were convened.

Um, this may be a drafting error and something to look at more closely, uh, but that's another flag for us.

So we we recommend amending the bill to authorize another citywide elected official, such as city controller to appoint a quadrennial advisory commission if the mayor fails to do so by the statutory deadline.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Uh, thank you, Chair Brewer, and other members of the council, and thank you to uh Commissioner Weissbrad for his testimony.

Um my name is Rachel Foss.

I'm the senior policy advisor for reInvent Albany.

ReInvent Albany advocates for transparent and accountable government in New York.

We support competitive salaries for elected and appointed government officials because we want government service to appeal to a broad spectrum of qualified and diverse candidates.

We are encouraged the council reached an agreement with Mayor Mamdani to appoint the quadrennial commission, and we appreciate the commission's acknowledgement that our public testimony informed their report and recommendations.

This council hearing is another important opportunity to hear from the public about this legislation.

So thank you for this hearing today.

Um, in brief, here is our positions on intro 2196.

Uh, we support the 18.2% salary increases for elected officials.

We also support the reforms to the commission process, such as restarting the commission in 2028, the third year of the term, and then every four years thereafter.

We support the one-time increase in 2026.

Um, and we also support increasing the time the commission has to issue a report to 120 days.

Um, like Citizens Union, we do not support, we oppose the automatic 8.25% or inflation adjustment if commissions are not formed.

Um, and uh, if there is a drafting error, certainly we encourage you to look at that.

Uh, the provision would effectively eliminate all public input regarding elected officials' salaries if a quadrennial commission is not formed.

Currently, the council must pass legislation to enact raises, and that triggers a public hearing.

And then the quadrennial commission itself typically holds hearings.

Uh, the commission process at the city level is one of the few opportunities for the public to discuss with policymakers not only salary levels, but important reforms like caps and bans on outside income, financial disclosure transparency, for example.

And this proposal may create an unintended consequence, an incentive for the mayor to not convene the commission because it is the path of least resistance.

Uh, lastly, we support the comptroller publishing a table of elected officials' salaries.

This makes sense.

Um, the bill could specifically say that this be published on the comptroller's website just to make it a little bit more uh 2026 appropriate.

Um, and lastly, we encourage the council to accompany salary increases with additional reforms to ethics and transparency.

In 2015, the council required disclosure forms of elected officials be published on the conflicts of interest board website in eliminated Lulus.

The council should continue this important tradition of providing a benefit to the public while they provide a benefit to themselves.

Um, we recommend the following.

Uh, the council should be required to provide reasons in writing when it modifies or does it not accept the quadrennial commission recommendations.

Uh, the quadrennial commission endorsed this proposal in their report.

The council should remove mention of stipends in the charter.

This is a vestige of the past.

The commission flagged this for you to consider.

We support that.

The council, lastly, should make financial disclosure forms much more accessible.

The commission, quadrenal commission said that our proposals in this area have merit, though felt they were outside their purview.

Fortunately, you, the council, have the authority to make this happen.

We support requiring elected officials' forms be available in an open data format.

We note that this would require COIB to upgrade its databases, which they told you at the budget hearing in June that they would like to do anyway.

We support requiring all financial disclosure statements from the time that elected officials are in office to be available on the COIB website.

Unfortunately, forms of uh former officials like Eric Adams from 2025 must still be requested from CYB, which triggers a notify notification requirement.

We think this needs to be corrected.

And lastly, um we support removing the notification requirement for all financial disclosure statements altogether.

The state does not require this uh for financial disclosures.

It's simply a FOIL request, and we think the city should treat it the same way.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Other questions from anybody over here?

Okay.

I have always helped some.

So uh I have one question, which is uh this maybe I should have asked Carl Weissbrot, but uh I was the mayor and the speaker both said they would be able to, well, they don't want to take the full salary that was in the newspaper.

How would they do that?

Can you split that up?

I don't know.

I mean, I didn't know.

If I remember right, it's a they can refund the money or they can donate it.

I think there's been different ways in the past that elections electeds have done this.

Only uh I think Mayor de Blasio may have also declined the salary increase after uh a pay raise was enacted.

So there's a method.

There's a method, okay.

Um the question I have is um do you think that mayors, I guess you felt strongly could in fact or would in fact, even council speakers and councils would in fact feel like this is uh too much work to have the commission.

This is uh you know, nicer to take our salary.

You were quite strong uh in that feeling.

So I just was wondering what you base that on.

I mean, because I must admit having listened to this, I didn't realize this is embarrassing for me because I've been in office since all these folks didn't have these commissions.

I think I'm the only one who's been in the whole time.

Um I didn't pay attention to it, to be honest with you.

So then I think no, though, because there's such interest and pressure, like you must have a commission that I think it will happen.

However, it couldn't, you know, down the line, who knows?

So I just want you to talk about that a little bit.

I think for us, we're basing this on what we've seen happen over the last decade, where we had uh Mayor de Blasio convened the last quadrennial commission.

Um he would have been able and and was sort of legally uh required to convene a second one during his term.

He did not do that.

Then we had Mayor Adams, who never convened one during his term.

Um so we we have seen uh in in recent years a reluctance uh to move forward with this.

I I my sense is that uh it may be viewed as a politically dicey or challenging uh endeavor to pursue, despite the fact that it is legally required.

Um so given all given the reluctance already uh to create these commissions, we're concerned that if the option of an uh inflation adjusted pay raise exists, then there will be no appetite at all by our political leaders to ever have a commission again.

Yeah, I think our view is very similar that you know, as I said in my testimony, it does seem the path of least resistance to just not do it.

Um, you know, there's always press interest in the uh salaries.

And then I would add that there are other ways to require to maybe make it so that this commission, there are other backstops.

And I know that Citizens Union mentioned the Comptroller, you know, in our previous testimony to the council back in 2025.

We suggested alternative means of appointing the commission so the mayor doesn't hold all the cards.

I think the issue is the mayor holds all the cards in appointing the commission and can hold that over the council.

So another way other than an automatic increase would be to have a commission appointed by the mayor, the council, the comp controller, the public advocate, different officials, so that it's more likely to be formed.

Um, since it's advisory, I you know think it's something for you to look into in terms of whether it requires a charter commission uh approval from the voters.

Maybe it does.

I know the commission looked at this, but it's um you know there are other ways to have a backstop, and one of them is to not have the mayor have unilateral unilateral power over the commission.

Okay, council members may you have a question?

Thank you, Chair.

I just wonder, did you guys do any research about increase the salary for your lactoficials and the corruption?

Is there any relationship between I I would say that the outside income being banned by the city council you know, number of years ago was a very important step to not have corruption at the state level.

There is outside income that is allowed, and there have been problems in the past.

And I think certainly um to the extent that there is a higher salary, there's less of an incentive to get private income that could create conflicts of interest.

Thank you.

We still have the question of staff.

I don't uh uh Carl White Spread said correctly that it was looked at, but not appropriate.

So I'm just wondering, do you think also on the staff issue?

That's a different topic, or could it have been something that was discussed?

Perhaps it couldn't have been officially recommended, but maybe it's a discussion point.

But I think we certainly support staff salary increases as a former legislative staff or myself.

I uh I feel that personally.

So I would agree.

Yeah.

Um, and then just also um during the 120 days, I know you both suggested that's a good time frame.

Um, are there other topics that you you mentioned, some um reinvent albany that could be considered?

So those you think could be part of a future commission is what you're saying essentially.

I think you I think part of the value of the commission is um looking at pay, but holistically within the broader sort of city council and uh government structure to determine are there reforms that could be tied to a pay increase, right?

So as Rachel put it, if the council is getting something in terms of higher pay, what are some reforms that are good for the public?

Um good ethics reforms, accountability, transparency, um, that could be tied with a pay raise and provide a broader benefit to the city.

Yeah, I think financial disclosure is what we focused on, given that it is obviously directly related, and it does get some of at the corruption potential corruption issues that um council member um Zwangs mentioned um specifically.

So and um are there suggestions that you made to the Charter Revision Commission that is currently meeting that are relevant to this topic?

I know they're two separate issues.

Um I find sometimes I know this is not appropriate to say going to the public on these nuanced issues can be complicated.

That's why I like a commission, because those folks are invested to the credit of the mayor, in my opinion, he picked three of the best possible people to be on this commission, and because they have the knowledge and the background.

So and they do understand the nuances, they do understand the budget and they do understand city government.

So I think this is a better route personally, but I didn't know if there was some other route you also charter-wise should be considered.

I don't think so.

I mean, I don't.

I just don't know how you thought about it.

All right, I don't have any other questions.

Anyone else?

No.

Okay.

Thank you both very, very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Christopher Leon Johnson.

Uh hello.

My name is Christopher Leon Johnson.

I support these provisions 100% of the same for the past statement.

Two meetings, one with Tasha Williams, and now it's you.

Uh, first off, we have to we have to eliminate the ban of outside income.

The problem is that, well, we want people that make, we want the right people in office, but if they make in 500,000 dollars, 600,000 in the private sector or sometimes non-profit sector, no, these two in the back probably make over 300,000 a year.

Why do you want to leave a 300,000 year job at a nonprofit to go make 148,000 in the city council, 175,000 city council?

That's the problem here.

We can't attract the right people to run for because nobody's gonna take a big time pay cut, and especially where you're scrutinized for everything you do, and everybody's thinking that you take money on the table.

Um, not only I'm calling for the removal outside income in the city council, I'm calling on where that um the city council should make at least 200,000 dollars a year.

Why in LA they make 200,000 a year, LA while we did these guys make 140,000 uh 500?

Um look, second thing is that the city council, if they if if you ever move the the um provision for um uh what is it uh outside income?

I think that should be the priority city council, the city council should be um classified as part-time, not only with that but part-time because um the these majorities offices open part-time.

Why do offices open uh 21 standing nurses open 21 hours a week, but she's full-time?

That's ridiculous.

If you want to be full-time, you should open your orders for 40 hours, at least 32 out 32 hours a week.

Um, I'll say this right here that uh there should be when it comes to inflation.

Um there should be uh this you should just increase the salaries anytime there's an inflation uh inflation increase.

Uh nobody should be uh taking prolonging anything just to to stay um um um compliant with the money.

Uh look, at the end of the day, guys, look, I support this 100%.

This is long overdue.

Uh the mayor and the speaker should not be uh declining their own salary increase.

They don't understand that what they make or they tend to make $300,000 a year.

I think the speaker could make $195,000 a year is like pocket change compared to what people that they have to tend to have to have the peas make in the private sector, especially the MTA.

There's MTA workers that make more money than the mayor.

That is crazy.

But that's a different that's a different thing.

Why is that the MT some MTA workers that they in a contract dispute are complaining about um their way they make more money than mayor?

They make more money than some of these city council members.

It's crazy.

Uh going forward, like I said, I support the percent that this should go through.

There should be no more commissions, no more um side commissions, nothing, nothing to that extent to where that it hurts your pocket because I know some of the members they need that increase.

So I support it 100%, guys, and this should go through with um supermajority and the mayor should not be though it.

So thank you so much.

Enjoy your day.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Perfect timing.

Thank you.

Uh, this hearing is concluded, and I certainly want to thank the members of the commission, everybody who testified, and my colleagues.

Thank you and staff.