Belleville City Council members vote to raise their salaries. How does their pay compare?
Belleville City Council members voted Monday night to give themselves a 3.5% pay raise each year for four years, beginning next spring, for a total increase of 14%
It will be their first raise since 2009.
The vote was 10-5 with Ward 6 Alderwoman Mary Stiehl abstaining. Mayor Patty Gregory stated her opposition for the record, but her vote wasn’t needed to break a tie.
Several aldermen spoke in favor of the pay raise, pointing to inflation and other rising costs and the time they spend to answer phone calls and emails and attend meetings and other functions.
“Some of us are on Social Security,” said Ward 4 Alderman Johnnie Anthony. “Some of us spend a considerable amount of time, gas, on the streets of Belleville, checking out concerns from citizens. ... We do bring work home on our computers. We use a lot of different resources.”
Sixteen people serve on Belleville City Council, two from each of eight wards. They now earn $11,086 a year.
Ward 7 Alderman Phil Elmore noted that people on Social Security got a 5.9% cost-of-living raise in 2022 and will get an 8.7% raise in 2023 and that, contrary to popular belief, City Council members don’t receive health benefits, cellphone allowances or gas reimbursements.
Ward 3 Alderman Kent Randle spoke of getting up early to take care of city business before starting his regular job and sometimes meeting with constituents or department heads on his lunch hour.
“While it is a privilege and an honor to serve the constituents that elected you to this body,” Randle told fellow aldermen, “I don’t think that they would be objectionable to an increase that hasn’t been passed in 13 years.”
Ward 1 Alderman Bryan Whitaker argued the other side. He pointed out that a 14% increase over four years is more than pay raises given to unionized city employees and that property taxes went up for Belleville residents this year.
City department heads get annual 2% increases, according to Gregory.
“As (Elmore) said, there’s never a good time, but in a year that we raise property taxes on our residents, that is not a year I can vote for a pay increase for us as aldermen,” Whitaker said.
Voting in favor of the raise were Joe Hazel of Ward 1, Carmen Duco and Jamie Eros of Ward 2, Raffi Ovian of Ward 4, Dennis Weygandt of Ward 7, Kara Osthoff and Nora Sullivan of Ward 8, Elmore, Randle and Anthony.
Voting against were Scott Ferguson of Ward 3, Edward Dintelman and Shelly Schaefer of Ward 5, Chris Rothweiler of Ward 6 and Whitaker.
The annual salary will go from $11,086 to $11,474 in May 2023, $11,876 in May 2024, $12,292 in May 2025 and $12,722 in May 2026. Belleville has a population of 42,404, according to 2020 U.S. Census figures.
Elsewhere in the metro-east, annual salaries for City Council members are:
- $3,000 a year for Collinsville ($250 per month), four members, 24,366 residents.
- $4,800 a year for O’Fallon ($200 per meeting), 14 members, 32,289 residents.
$6,000 a year for Edwardsville, seven members, 26,808 residents.
$9,600 for Fairview Heights ($800 per month), 10 members, 16,706 residents.
- $19,419 for St. Clair County Board, 29 members, 257,400 residents.
This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
