Harrisburg City Council on Tuesday
Harrisburg City Council on Tuesday weighed an ordinance to allow for raises for several elected officials.
Some council members expressed their opposition to a proposal from the city to significantly raise salaries for the mayor, council and several other elected officials, while other council members said they needed more information.
As part of Harrisburg’s proposed 2026 general fund budget, Mayor Wanda Williams would receive a $20,000 raise, bringing her annual salary to $100,000, four council members would get a $5,000 raise and the controller would get a $5,000 raise. The additional three council members and city treasurer would receive raises at the beginning of their next terms, as salary hikes for elected officials are only legally allowed at the beginning of a term.
According to Interim Businesses Administrator Sam Sulkosky, the elected officials have not received raises in 20 years.
City Solicitor Neil Grover said that, while raises have been brought up over the years, few have been proposed and none have passed council. Grover described it as a tough political call.
“I will not be supporting this bill. I think people do deserve raises, but […] we knew the job was hard when we took it,” council member Lamont Jones said. “We have a lot of issues in the city of Harrisburg and, for me, I can’t enrich myself when we’re in this position.”
Council President Danielle Hill also told TheBurg that she would be voting “no.”
Hill explained that she mainly took issue with the raise that the mayor would receive and said that she sees many other issues in the city that she would rather focus on.
“Many people have asked me, ‘What has the mayor done to deserve a raise?'” Hill said.
Council member Jocelyn Rawls expressed concern with the amount that salaries were proposed to increase and questioned if they could be raised more incrementally.
Council member Shamaine Daniels asked how the raises would impact pension costs, but officials did not have that information at the time.
Other council members said that they understood the need for raises after years without any, while raising concerns over whether the city could afford them long-term.
“We’ve legislated through some of the hardest times that our city’s seen, COVID. I remember sitting in this very chamber with masks on and our lives were at risk,” Rodriguez said. “But I do understand, I overstand a lot of our residents’ concerns. But I’ve always looked at why a lot of our directors are making more than our mayor, I’ve just never seen any sense with that. And same thing with council. It’s a position where you really can’t put a price on it.”
Sulkosky shared data on elected officials’ salaries in comparable cities. According to his findings, Lancaster’s mayor makes $103,084 annually, York’s mayor makes $75,000, and Wilkes-Barre’s mayor makes $82,400. The median salary for about a dozen cities’ mayors was $85,184.
Council decided to keep the bill in committee, requesting additional information on salary comps from Sulkosky.
In other news, council weighed extending the city’s lease agreement with the Broad Street Market Alliance for another year. The current lease expired at the end of 2021 and has been operating on a month-to-month basis since.
Grover explained that the city and market will need to have meetings to discuss a new lease. However, Grover said that the current lease needs to be extended as part of a requirement for the market to receive state grant funding for upgrades to the market’s stone building.
Council also weighed another extension, this one being for Harrisburg’s LERTA program, which provides tax abatement incentives to developers. Around this time last year, officials asked for an extension for the program, but said that they’d be working to reevaluate and make changes to LERTA in order to better serve stakeholders.
Jason Graves, the city’s director of business development and LERTA administrator, said that the city has drafted new legislation and has received county support, but is waiting on the Harrisburg School District to review. Because of the delay, the current LERTA program is proposed to be extended for another year.
If you like what we do, please support our work. Become a Friend of TheBurg!
