Should Roseville City Council members get paid more? Voters to decide

The Abridged version:

• Roseville’s Measure A would increase each City Council member‘s monthly pay from $600 to $2,550 per month, costing the city about $117,000 each year.
• Supporters say that City Council wages, which have stayed the same since 2000, have not kept up with the pace of inflation. They also say a pay raise will make the office more accessible to people of diverse financial backgrounds.
• Opponents argue that the 325% increase in wages far exceeds the rate of inflation over the past two decades, and that the money would better serve the community in other ways.

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Roseville City Council members haven’t gotten a raise since 2000. Voters might change that this election cycle.

Measure A would increase City Council members’ compensation from $600 to $2,550 a month, with yearly inflation-tied salary adjustments capped at 5%. City Council members would end up making $30,600 annually, a 325% uptick from the $7,200 they currently earn each year for their work.

The sitting City Council voted earlier this year to put the potential pay raise on ballots. Measure A supporters argue that stagnant wages have not kept up with inflation over the past two decades, and that higher pay will make the job more accessible to potential officeholders. Opponents contend that quadrupling City Council’s compensation would be excessive, and that the money could be put to better uses.

“I support Measure A because public service should be accessible to a diverse pool of candidates, not just those who can afford to serve for $600 a month,” Roseville vice mayor Karen Alvord said.

Why ask voters?

Local law dictates that residents must vote on any changes to Roseville City Council salaries. A pay raise was first recommended by city staff when they reviewed the charter in 2020, but City Council member Bruce Houdesheldt said that stressors and different priorities related to the pandemic kept them from turning the recommendation into a ballot question that year.

City Council members later narrowly voted against including the pay raise question on the 2024 ballot, as Roseville residents had multiple other finance-related measures to vote on.

Officials hope that timing proves more favorable this year.

In 2023, the state of California passed a law raising the maximum salaries that City Council members across the state could make based on population. The $2,550 monthly compensation proposed in Measure A matches the maximum set for cities with populations between 150,000 and 250,000.

Since the law’s approval, other cities in the region have approved sharp increases to City Council members’ compensation. The Folsom City Council voted to triple its member salaries without taking the issue to the ballot earlier this year, and Elk Grove City Council members voted in 2024 to raise their own salaries to $2,500 a month.

If approved, Measure A would cost Roseville an estimated $117,000 a year. It would not impose new taxes on Roseville residents, drawing funding from the city’s existing revenue.

A city debate

Measure A has stirred controversy since City Council approved adding it to the ballot, sometimes drawing spirited comment at council meetings.

“When you see a way to make up a 26-year pay lapse, I see 23 educational grants of $5,000 apiece the city could award it’s young high school workers just trying to save up a bit for college,” Measure A opponent Trevor Robinson-Wong said. “That money wouldn’t be minuscule to them.”

But council members also said that the money wouldn’t prove minuscule to prospective candidates facing financial difficulties. Explaining her support for Measure A, Alvord emphasized the issue of accessibility and drawing diverse candidates to the office.

“There’s a lot of people who would make good servants, who would do a great job on council, but don’t have the financial freedom to serve,” Alvord said. “Maybe they need to make money in a part-time job, or perhaps they’re single parents and would need childcare, and they can’t afford that with the amount of meetings.”

City Council members estimated that they devote upwards of 20 hours per week to the office, with plenty of behind-the-scenes work beyond public meetings.

Most council members who voted to move Measure A forward will be leaving office in the near future: two will be term-limited in 2028, and representatives for districts 2 and 4 will retire at the end of this year.

“We don’t do it for the money, we do it because we’re interested in making Roseville the community it is,” Houdesheldt, who will term out in 2028, said. “You want to make sure that folks who step forward with their background and experience get compensated for their time.”

Candidates running for the District 2 and District 4 seats shared their perspectives in Abridged by PBS KVIE’s voter guide. District 2 candidate David Nelson opposes Measure A, while fellow candidate Anne Carpenter supports it. District 4 candidate Michael Franks also supports the measure, and Rick Bartee, the district’s other candidate, said he’d support the will of the voters on the issue.