Bloomington city council member Sydney Zulich said her ordinance proposal, which would double the current salary of city council members, will “look different” at the council’s meeting next Wednesday.
The city council gave the ordinance its first reading Wednesday. Local law prohibits council members from discussing the ordinance until it undergoes a second reading next Wednesday, Dec. 11.
Currently, city council members make $21,153 a year. The ordinance, if passed, would fix their 2025 pay at $45,423. After the proposal was met with criticism from the public and fellow council members, Zulich is reconsidering that wage.
“I want to work toward something that works for everyone, or, you know, most people,” Zulich told the Indiana Daily Student.
Councilmember Isak Nti Asare was one of the ordinance’s critics.
“It’s a ridiculous bump,” he said after Wednesday’s meeting.
Asare said he felt the ethos of the council to serve the public was not expressed in the ordinance.
“What’s more important is the fundamental arguments that are being made and how those have to be accounted for,” Asare said. “Most of them are poorly reasoned. How we even came to that conclusion in the first place, to me, is really frustrating.”
Zulich led a salary committee that consisted of council members Kate Rosenbarger, Hopi Stosberg and Matt Flaherty. Together, they decided on the $45,423 amount proposed in the ordinance based on the mayor’s salary. The same ordinance proposes mayor Kerry Thomson receive a raise of $13,379, making her salary $151,410.
Given that the mayor has a full-time job, the committee sought to figure out what percentage of a 40-hour week the council members work as part-time employees. Council members self-reported their hours in a survey conducted by the committee, which found members work an average of 16.67 hours a week.
Two council members self-reported a 12-hour work week, which was the lowest figure. The committee used that number, which is 30% of a full-time work week, to determine the city council salary. The $45,423 is 30% of the mayor’s proposed $151,410 salary.
The council’s current pay is lower than in other Indiana cities of comparable size, but the proposed salary would put them more than $10,000 above the city councils’ salaries in bigger cities. Hammond, the city closest to Bloomington by population, pays its city council members $35,494 a year.
Converting the proposed city council member salary into an hourly rate using the 12-hour work week yields a wage of $72.79 an hour. The ordinance says the committee did not establish compensation based on hours worked, but rather upon the “requirements to provide quality community service.”
This method of deciding the council’s salary is unprecedented in Bloomington. Zulich said she was open to “go with something else” regarding that strategy.
“If I’m hearing from people of District 6 that’s not something that they want, I’m not above voting for what they need instead of what I think is best,” Zulich said. “I’m not going to parent anyone. I trust the people of Bloomington to know what they need.”
The council will meet for its second regular session of the month at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 11 at City Hall.
