A new 3% salary increase is being considered for eight of the nine members of the Honolulu City Council.
The proposed pay jump comes less than a year after the city’s top elective panel received a controversial 64% salary increase while the Honolulu mayor’s nearly 12.6% pay jump ultimately surpassed similar compensation granted to Hawaii’s governor.
Tasked with deciding whether to commit to future pay hikes for city employees, Honolulu Salary Commission will hold a public hearing today to take community testimony as it sets the city’s overall salary schedule for fiscal year 2025, which begins July 1.
A formal adoption of Honolulu’s next salary schedule will likely occur by April.
To mull possible pay hikes for the Council and other city posts, a study was conducted by the commission’s subcommittee — known as a Permitted Interaction Group, or PIG — that, in part, recommended the Council should have its current annual pay of $113,304 boosted to $116,712.
However, the same subcommittee did not recommend a salary increase for the Council chair above what that position received in 2023, a 60% pay jump, to $123,292 annually, up from $76,968.
Likewise, the mayor’s annual salary — which in 2023 increased to $209,856 from $186,432 — also is not recommended for a raise. The salary for the mayor’s post now exceeds the governor’s over-$165,000 yearly pay.
The city managing director is also not proposed to receive more compensation, above what was already received in 2023, or $200,712, up from $178,320.
Still, high-level city positions could receive a nearly 3.6% pay hike — due, in part, to existing collective bargaining agreements still being negotiated between the city and Bargaining Unit 13, composed of professional and scientific employees — as the new fiscal year nears.
Some of those positions include:
>> Prosecuting attorney: to $206,028 from $198,888.
>> Police chief: to $239,964 from $231,648.
>> Fire chief: from $224,304 to $232,357.
>> Corporation counsel: to $199,788 from $192,864.
Meanwhile, 14 department heads could see their pay jump to $194,219 from $187,488, while 14 deputy department heads could see salary hikes to $184,274 from $177,888, the subcommittee indicates.
According to the city, the nearly 3.6% pay increase does not include a nearly 2% annual step increase to pay per that bargaining unit.
On Monday, Commissioner Rebecca Soon told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the proposed city salary increases for many city employees were on par with bargaining units.
“Usually what happens is whatever the BU increases are, they usually somewhat track with the what the Salary Commission considers,” she said.
As far as the Council’s proposed 3% increase, Soon said she believed that action recognizes the need for investment in local government.
“We’ve seen in other jurisdictions, for example, that paying living wages leads to a more diverse Council, a more gender- and economically diverse Council,” she said. “I think it’s a reflection of the fact that if you put out living wages, that people who have jobs can actually run for these positions. It’s not just retirees and independently wealthy people that can run for these positions.”
Over the past 40 years in city government, “29 of those years had zero” pay increases for the Council, she added.
A volunteer body established by the Honolulu City Charter, the Salary Commission — variously appointed by the Council and mayor — might or might not adopt these pay recommendations.
According to the city, the commission is responsible for setting salaries of around 50 positions that lead the city, manage a $4.5 billion budget and oversee 10,000 employees.
Moreover, the Charter includes two key measures: “adequate compensation for work performed” and a “sensible relationship with the salaries of other City positions.” The scope of the commission includes only those listed in the Charter, essentially city-elected positions, Cabinet members, police and fire chiefs, and attorneys in the corporation counsel and prosecuting attorney offices.
The commission, however, does not set salaries for city and state civil service positions, the city says.
At 2023’s meeting to set the 2024 salary schedule, city Managing Director Mike Formby told the Salary Commission such pay hikes were necessary to recruit and retain city workers — many of whom were short-term appointees — to live and work in expensive Honolulu.
“It’s hard to get people to leave the private sector to come to an appointed job that is not a civil service job,” Formby said previously. “Many people think that appointees are civil servants, but they are not. They are outside the civil service system, which means they don’t have the job security associated with the civil service system.”
Formby added that the mayor’s term will last for only a maximum of eight years, and those short-term appointees do not benefit from pensions.
If adopted, this would be the second year in a row top city officials garnered more pay.
In 2023, Nola Miyasaki, director of the city Department of Human Resources, told the Star- Advertiser that the Salary Commission had not raised pay for department heads and its top elected officials in years.
“In 2020, 2021 and 2022, the commission recommended no salary adjustments,” Miyasaki said previously. “The driving factor for the increases currently being considered are the collectively bargained salary increases provided to city employees in the most recent round of negotiations and arbitrations.”
She added that “those increases, in addition to the inversion and the compression of salaries between civil service positions and elected/appointed positions, have been reviewed by the commission in determining their recommendations on raises for elected and appointed officials.”
Miyasaki added that most of the city’s 21 department directors earn an average annual salary of $166,560.
But in 2023 some on the Council did not accept their granted pay hikes.
In the days leading up to the controversial start of the salary increases, Council members Augie Tulba, Andria Tupola and Radiant Cordero each submitted a required memorandum to the city stating their formal rejection to the expected $44,400 pay bump they were to receive — to $113,304, up from $68,904.
To that end the trio requested to keep their annual Council salaries unchanged at $68,904.
In part, Tupola’s rejection memo stated, “It would be inconsistent for me to accept a raise given my strong public opinion against salary increases. Furthermore, I have co-sponsored legislation to unanimously reject raises for elected and appointed City officials, and I remain committed and accountable to my own proposals.”
The Salary Commission meeting begins at 1 p.m. inside Honolulu Hale, 530 S. King St., Room 207.
SALARY BUMPS
Increases for city posts could affect the following:
City Council:
$116,712 from $113,304
Prosecuting attorney:
$206,028 from $198,888
Police chief:
$239,964 from $231,648
Fire chief:
$232,357 from $224,304
Corporation counsel:
$199,788 from $192,864
