Good morning and welcome to today's New York City Council vote for the Committee on Government Operations, State and Federal Legislation.

At this time, please silence all electronic devices and no one may approach a day as at any time.

Chair, we're ready to begin.

Thank you.

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

I would like to welcome my council colleagues who have joined us here today, Councilmember Dinowitz, Wilson, and Morano.

Today we are voting on Deputy Speaker Williams's bill, proposed preconsidered intro, which would increase the compensation of the mayor, the public advocate, the members of the city council, the borough presidents, the controller, and district attorneys, although they have a slightly different way of doing it.

In addition, we will be voting on intro 398, which will make technical amendments to the annual disclosures of financial interests by certain officers and employees of the cities, kind of like a technical bill.

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

This quadrennial commission is meant to create a regular review of elected official salaries.

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

Mayor de Blasio declined to impanel the required commission in 2020, and Mayor Adams declined to convene one in 2024, creating a 10-year gap, which is the longest stretch in the 40 years since the quadrennial commission framework has been in place.

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

Legislators and other cities like LA, Chicago, and Philly all make more than we do, and all those cities have significantly smaller budgets and oversee much smaller workforces.

Although in LA I know it's a stronger than the mayor.

These stagnant wages not only affect elected officials, they keep staff salaries low.

For non-executive roles, an elected official salary serves as a cap on the salaries of the employees who work for them.

Keeping elected salaries low prevents the city from offering competitive wages.

This makes it difficult for us to attract the best and brightest to crucial city jobs.

Although I wish that there was more money for staff.

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

We do not want elected officials to only be accessible to wealthy individuals.

Being elected official in New York is a challenging and demanding 24-7 job, and elected officials deserve to be fairly compensated.

We should be able to support ourselves and our families on our salary.

In January of this year, shortly after taking office, the mayor, along with the speaker, jointly announced the formation of the condennial advisory commission to review compensation levels for elected officials.

The mayor appointed three experienced public servants, Carl Weissbread, Dr.

Lilliam Barrios Paoli, and Dr.

Larry and Angelo, all friends of mine, I have to admit, and my age, which I like, to the commission.

The commission released its findings in a report on June 23rd of this year.

It recommended increasing the salaries for the mayor, public advocate, controller, borough presidents, city council members, and DAs by 18.2%, retroactive to January 1st of this year.

In addition to the pay increase, the commission also made several other recommendations regarding elected official pay.

They recommended regularly convening the commission and altering the timing of future commission 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 only affect 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.

This proposed preconsider intro that we are voting on today would codify these recommendations.

We definitely thank the members of the commission for their service.

The second day we are voting on, second bill we are voting on today, makes technical edits to the conflict of interest boards disclosure requirements.

The admin code requires city elected officials, candidates for such offices, and certain public officers and employees to fill out disclosure reports about their financial interests with COIB, as we know.

The admin code sets seven value ranges or bans that a filer must choose from when reporting the value or amount of a particular financial interest.

COIB is required to update these bans every four years.

In February of this year, COIB increased the definition of ownership interest to sixty-four thousand dollars.

This caused the strange situation where the bottom of the third band of disclosure is sixty-four thousand, while the top of the range for that band remained at sixty thousand.

This bill will fix this incongruity by resetting the ranges of some of the bands.

The bill we are voting on today will only change which band an officer or employer disclosures in.

Oh, and Councilmember Zwang is on Zoom.

Thank you.

Mr.

Martin, we're ready for you.

Councilmember Stevens is also on Zoom.

And Councilmember Felice has just arrived in time for the vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

William Martin, committee clerk, roll call vote.

Items are coupled.

Chair Brewer.

Yes.

Tinowitz.

Yes.

Felice.

Aye, thank you.

Stevens.

Aye at all.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Zhuang.

Councilmember Zhuang, I'll come back.

Wilson.

I vote aye.

Morano.

Aye on three nine eight and uh no one twenty-one ninety-six.

Thank you.

Councilmember Zhuang.

One moment, please.

Vote is as follows.

Introduction three ninety-eight has been approved by the committee with a vote of six in the affirmative, zero in the negative into abstentions, and pre-considered introduction has been also approved by the committee with five in the affirmative, one in the negative, no abstentions.

Councilmember Zhuang was logged on due to technical difficulties, unable to vote.

But she is present.

Madam Chair.

This heating uh meeting is closed.

Thank you.