Boise City Council asks staff to return with amended salary schedule for mayor, council after substitute motion

Boise City Council voted to ask staff to return with an amended ordinance that would change the proposed mayor and city council salaries for fiscal years 2026 through 2031, approving a substitute motion after a tied vote was broken by the mayor.

The substitute motion directs staff to bring back an ordinance that retains the ordinance's other provisions but replaces the salary schedule with 3% base increases each year, plus a 6% cost-of-living adjustment in 2026 and a 1% cost-of-living adjustment in 2027 (a 9% increase in 2026, 4% in 2027, then 3% annually thereafter). A council member who introduced the substitute described the revisions as a way to spread increases over time while aligning with the original intent of a 2019 ordinance.

The council considered ORD-35-24, described in the meeting as "an ordinance amending Boise City Code Title 1 Chapter 6 Section 2 to clarify council president duties in the absence of the mayor; Boise City Code Title 1 Chapter 6 Section 3 to add fiscal year 2026 through 2031 salaries for mayor and city council; [and] to increase the daily amount paid to a city council member for acting as mayor," and to set an effective date of Jan. 1, 2025. Council members first moved to suspend rules and dispense with multiple readings so the ordinance could be read and considered immediately. That motion carried.

Before a final approval vote on ORD-35-24, a substitute motion was offered to have staff return with amended salary amounts reflecting the percentages above. The council voted on whether to consider the substitute motion (motion to hear the substitute): the clerk recorded Corliss, Halliburton and Morales voting yes; Nash, Sted and Willett voting no; the vote to hear the substitute carried. The substitute motion itself was then voted on; the clerk recorded Corliss, Halliburton and Morales voting yes and Nash, Sted and Willett voting no, producing a 3–3 tie. The mayor cast a tie-breaking vote in favor, and the substitute motion carried.

During the substitute motion presentation, the council member who introduced it said the new schedule is intended to "align salaries with the original intention of the 2019 ordinance" and described the change as spreading increases so future budgets are less likely to require a single large adjustment. That speaker also acknowledged an earlier misstatement about total percentage increases and emphasized that the aim is to prevent salaries from falling behind cost-of-living in future years.

Council discussion also referenced prior adjustments: the speaker said the 2019 ordinance originally intended 3% annual raises but that those were reduced in 2020 and later years because of COVID, producing smaller average increases in practice. The substitute motion asks staff to return with exact dollar amounts implementing the percentages starting in 2026; the council did not adopt final dollar amounts at this meeting.

The council packet and the ordinance text were referenced during the discussion. The council did not finalize the ordinance text with specific salary figures at this meeting; instead the approved substitute directs staff to prepare an amended ordinance for a future council meeting that will include the exact salary amounts reflecting the approved percentage schedule.

The meeting record shows the procedural steps taken (suspension of reading rules, motions to consider a substitute, and the substitute vote) and the roll-call votes on the substitute. The council also discussed that approved changes would not take effect immediately and noted timing relative to upcoming election cycles and implementation, but no final effective-dates-for-pay-changes beyond the ordinance's cited Jan. 1, 2025 effective date were adopted for the amended schedule at this meeting.