Austin City Council Pay

Local Government Code Section 152.013 requires counties to publish a newspaper ad stating the salaries, expenses, or allowances that are proposed to be increased for all elected county or precinct officers, including the amount of proposed increases. The ad must be published more than 10 days before the commissioners court meets for a budget hearing and adopts the budget.

The Austin City Council voted unanimously to adopt this ordinance on November 16, 2006. The ordinance gave the mayor and council members significant pay raises. It also established a system that grants to the mayor and council members the same percentage pay increase that the council grants to rank-and-file employees (excluding police and firefighters, who are civil service employees; their pay is determined by contracts).

A county commissioners court must publicly vote on proposed pay increases. Then, each member of the commissioners court must personally sign the orders setting salaries for elected officials, including their own. This is the order signed by members of the Travis County Commissioners Court for F& 2010-2011.

This is the transcript of the brief discussion that took place before the Austin City Council voted unanimously on November 16, 2006, to adopt an ordinance that gives future council members automatic pay raises when the council grants pay raises to rank-and-file employees (excluding police and firefighters, who are civil service employees whose pay is set by contract).