Indy City Council approves massive pay raise for next mayor. Is city worker pay to follow?

The Indianapolis City-County Council approved a 57% pay bump for future city mayors Monday, but the increase won't go into effect until after the end of Mayor Joe Hogsett's current term.

The mayor's annual salary will jump from $95,000 to $150,000 beginning in 2028. Other county leaders, such as the auditor and assessor, will receive pay increases ranging from 40% to 214% starting in 2025.

Meanwhile, municipal worker pay is mired in the uncertainty of budget negotiations but is expected to reflect a baseline 2.9% increase for some employees, according to a city spokesperson.

The council approved the elected leader pay raise proposal, sponsored by Council President Vop Osili, by a 18-6 vote on Monday.

Council originally proposed increasing the mayor's pay at the start of 2025, but Hogsett said he'd veto any pay raise for himself.

"When I first ran for the Office of the Mayor in 2015, I was well aware of the salary of the position. My consistent position remains that I will never accept a pay raise as Mayor," Hogsett said in an August statement. "... If a proposal for salary increases for other elected officials reaches my desk with a pay raise for the Office of the Mayor included in that proposal, I will veto it."

Osili's proposal now pushes a raise to the start of the next term, with Hogsett's current term ending in 2028. Osili is seen as a potential successor to Hogsett should Hogsett not run again.

Hogsett's office did not respond to an inquiry on the change, despite a strong position on the previous draft.

Columbus, Ohio, a Midwest city with a similarly sized population, has a mayor who earns more than $200,000 annually. Hogsett also makes less than the mayors of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Greenwood and Lawrence, according to data from Indiana Gateway.

Brian Mowery, the Republican minority leader on the City-County Council, introduced an amendment to push proposed county leader salary increases to the beginning of the elected person's term, similar to the mayor's stipulation.

Councilor Dan Boots, a Democrat, objected, saying the raise was more than a decade past due.

"Mr. President, I'm concerned with this amendment due to the fact that these elected officials have had a flat salary for nearly 15 years not even a near or simple cost of living adjustment," he said. " "I think it's only fair ... they get the salary adjustment immediately."

The approved proposal increases the pay of county elected officials starting in 2025, including:

Union worker pay negotiations ongoing

The status of pay raises for city union workers remains unclear before the council's Oct. 7 final budget meeting.

During his pitch last month, Hogsett's administration touted his proposed eighth consecutive balanced budget. He also said salary contracts for city and county employees were undergoing an opaque negotiation process.

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, the Indianapolis Fire Department, the Marion County Sheriff's Office, the Marion County Public Defender Agency and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) are all negotiating new contracts, according to city officials.

Democratic council member Ron Gibson, meeting with municipal employees from the AFSCME Local No. 725 in a Department of Public Works street resurfacing demo last week, said public street workers were past due for a raise.

"I'm very confident in the mayor and the head of DPW that, we'll see some increases in raises," he said. "I absolutely support an increase in wages for DPW."

Brandon Herget, the head of the Department of Public Works, said rapid residential street response teams like the department's Division 4 team, or D4, have proven to be effective and need a salary adjustment.

"So, when we stood up the D4 team back in the 2018 budget, we started with just a handful of individuals. We've been able to grow the size back to where it is today, and this year's budget is going to hopefully right size their salaries so that we can continue to be competitive in the market," he said.

Excluding the police and fire departments, the city's two most populated and highest-paid departments, roughly three-fourths of the remaining city employees made below the 2023 state average salary of $57,304, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data .

DPW said in the proposed 2025 budget, the Office of Finance and Management is eyeing a health care cost increase, a 2.9% general salary increase for all non-union employees and a baseline assumption for union employee increases once salary negotiations are finalized.

"Negotiations for the new CBA are not yet complete. Indy DPW will work with OFM to determine how to best utilize our 2025 and future year budgets to accommodate whatever increase is agreed to," said Kyle Bloyd, DPW spokesman.

Michael McDaniel is the city government reporter at IndyStar. He can be reached at .