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Council leans toward 5% cost-of-living increase, debates future merit system
Summary
Council members discussed and signaled agreement to include a 5% cost-of-living adjustment in the FY27 budget while acknowledging the city policy must be rewritten before shifting to a formal merit-based pay program.
A prolonged council exchange focused on employee compensation, with multiple members arguing for a 5% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for FY27 and others urging a future move to merit-based raises once city policy is revised.
"Let's do the 5% then across the board for everyone," the chair (speaker 3) said during the discussion, summarizing the room's consensus to include an across-the-board COLA in the budget package. Several council members and department heads questioned whether a merit system could be implemented immediately, noting the current policy language (authored under a prior mayor) prevents straightforward application of anniversary- or merit-based raises without a formal policy revision.
Speakers flagged trade-offs: a COLA gives all employees an increase but may leave longer-tenured staff effectively "maxed out" on the pay scale, while a merit system requires updated verbiage and evaluation procedures before it can be applied citywide. Council directed staff to include a 5% COLA in the presented budget model and to return with suggested policy verbiage and implementation steps to enable a future merit system.
No formal vote on COLA or policy change was recorded in the transcript excerpt; council members asked staff to prepare the necessary policy revisions and cost modeling for a later meeting.
