The Honolulu Salary Commission voted 5-1 Tuesday in favor of increasing the salaries for the city's elected officials. That includes councilmembers, the mayor, and the heads of city departments.
Under the proposal, Mayor Rick Blangiardi's salary will increase to $210,000, and Managing Director Mike Formby's pay will rise to $200,000. Both are increases of roughly $20,000 from their current salaries.
However, councilmembers would get the largest increase at 64% — from roughly $70,000 to $113,000. Council Chair Tommy Waters will get $10,000 more than his colleagues. But that's lower than another version that proposed a more than $100,000 increase.
Nonetheless, the increase will make Honolulu's city council the highest-paid councilmembers in the state.
"Maui County chair [is] making $86,000," Commissioner Rebecca Soon said. "I don't think we're talking about a ton above that when we compare the size of the county, the size of the budget, the size of the employees. Kauaʻi County will be $80,000 this summer."
The raises for councilmembers drew some community complaints and opposition.
"When councilmembers took their positions, they were well aware when they ran for office that it was recognized as a part-time job — for decades," said Commissioner Carolee Kubo, who was the lone opponent. "$70,000 for a part-time job is not a drop in the bucket... Many employees don't earn that [in] one job, two jobs, three jobs!"
Kubo noted the money could go toward filling city vacancies in departments, which stands at 35% across city government, and help city workers.
"Child care has gone up, food has gone up, the cost of medicine has gone up," Kubo said. "All of this is trickling down to unaffordable living in Hawaiʻi. The pay increases for the workers who are on the line, doing the work has not kept up."
Former North Shore Councilmember Heidi Tsuneyoshi testified in opposition to the steep raises, saying a smaller incremental raise would be more justified.
"What the budget is, right now, is inflated based on money received by the city from federal dollars that came to us due to the pandemic," Tsuneyoshi said. "This money will not always be here. So the decisions you're making here today has to be tied to real dollars that we have available to the city in perpetuity. And not in this snapshot."
While commissioners agreed there's a need to improve city services, improve pay for city workers and fill department vacancies, most defended the raises. Commissioner David Hayakawa noted previous city councils rejected raises for the last four years, and councilmembers often work more than 40 hours a week.
"The belief our leaders somehow should take a sacrifice, or take a hit, because people in the past did it, that's not fair," Hayakawa said. "People say, 'Well, they knew what the pay was coming in.' But that's not in our charter. The charter says equitable pay with other comparable employees, etc."
Hayakawa noted that despite the notion a seat at the city council has been viewed as a part-time job, he said hasn't found anything that states it is one.
For other commissioners, the 64% raise is a compromise from where the commission originally started from. Commissioner Soon said previous conversations would have given the council the same salary as deputy directors — a more than 160% salary increase.
"Now we're at 60%, which still sounds like a lot if we're entering the conversation at 60%," Soon said. "For me, at least, we're trying to be responsive to the concern about trying to tighten. And trying to get to something that does not feel as significant."
Soon said the salary increase could result in more community members running for office in the future.
The commission is working on a study that would help the body make more informed choices about the salaries of the city's leaders and employees.
The City Council has the option to reject the salary commission's decision. Otherwise, the new salaries will go into effect on July 1.
