ATLANTA — The Atlanta City Council’s Elected Officials Compensation Commission made recommendations just over a week ago to increase the salaries of multiple elected officials.
The increases range from just over 30% higher for the mayor to nearly 160% for the Board of Education’s chairperson.
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According to documents from the city council meeting on Nov. 4, here are the current salaries and what the proposed raises would be.
- Mayor: Increase from $202,730.00 to $271,000.00 (33.67% increase)
- Council President: Increase from $$74,400.00 to $132,500.00 (78% increase)
- Members of Council: Increase from $72,360.00 to $127,500.00 (76% increase)
- Board of Education Chair: Increase from $31,000.00 to $80,000.00 (158% increase)
- Board of Education Vice-Chair: Increase from $30,500.00 to $77,500.00 (154% increase)
- Board of Education Members: Increase from $30,000.00 to $70,000.00 (133% increase)
The agenda version of the presentation on salaries from the meeting showed comparisons between the City of Atlanta and similarly sized cities in other areas, as well as data on median home prices in the city as of September.
In the city council documents, the median listing home prices in Atlanta were reported as $398,000, which was down 9.5% from the year before.
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Comparing Atlanta to other cities in Georgia, the documents available used the Cost of Living Index for contrast with the other municipalities.
The COLI uses a baseline of 100 as the national average, with cities or counties ranked in comparison on their own numbers.
For Atlanta, the COLI reported for the city was 112.3, or 12.3% more than the national average cost of living.
By comparison, cities in Georgia such as Columbus, Savannah, Athens and Augusta had reported COLIs between 90.7 and 95.9, all of which are less than Atlanta, less than the national average, and also less than the state COLI, which is also 112.3, according to the documentation.
Channel 2 Action News has asked for clarification on if the approval in the Nov. 4 meeting meant that the salaries would be increasing, but a spokeswoman for the City Council said it wouldn’t come to a full vote until January 2025.
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