Pay Raises, 4-Year Terms For Mayor, City Council Considered At Retreat

FAIRFAX CITY, VA — Mayor Catherine Read and members of the Fairfax City Council met at Historic Blenheim Tuesday night for their annual retreat. They discussed a variety of issues, including whether to enact raises for elected officials and to extend the terms of councilmembers from two to four years.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed legislation that set the maximum salaries for municipalities with a population between 20,000 and 34,999 to $24,000 and $22,000, for mayor and councilmembers, respectively. Since 2015, the mayor has received an annual stipend of $13,000, with each councilmember receiving $12,000.

If the city council were to enact an ordinance to raise the salaries for elected officials and stipends for city residents serving on boards, they needed to do so at least 4 months prior to the next municipal election.

That meant the council would need to pass an ordinance by July 5, 2024. In order to make that happen, the council would be required to vote on the ordinance by its June 25 meeting or the July 2 work session, if that meeting were converted to a special meeting so that the vote could take place.

The current council wouldn't be voting to raise their own compensation, because the raises wouldn't go into effect until July 1, 2025, months after the Nov. 5 election.

Three of the current councilmembers have already announced that they would not be seeking reelection in November — Tom Ross, So Lim and Jon Stehle. City residents have until Tuesday, June 18 to file as candidates for the November election.

"There is the fact that it takes more and more time to do what we do and that what we're doing is more complex," Read said. "There is a very small number of people who can afford to run for office. We should acknowledge the fact that there are personal expenses that we all bear to actually serve our office and community."

Even thought the state granted the council the authority to enact a pay raise, Councilmember Jeff Greenfield, who is the longest serving councilmember, said that to do so would send the wrong message to the community and that issue needed further discussion.

"An important question in all of this is does the existing salary discourage people from running? Are we discouraging people who might be willing to serve from running because they see what the salary is?" Councilmember Tom Ross asked. "Maybe there's some additional analysis, but I would support a slight increase now."

Without coming to a consensus on pay raises, the council then turned its attention to a a proposal to amend the city charger to increase the terms of office for councilmembers from two to four years.

"I'm also suggesting that we think about staggered terms," Read said, introducing the proposal. "Having everybody elected at-large every two years, with the mayor and city council, strategically can be very problematic."

With three members of the current council not seeking election and no guarantee that the mayor and three remaining councilmembers would be reelected, the council sworn in next January could be made up entirely of new members, with no or little experience, according to Read.

"We need to be thinking about four-year terms starting in 2026," she said.

In order to achieve staggered terms, the three city council candidates who received the most votes in the 2026 election would serve four-year terms, according to Read's proposal. The three elected councilmembers that received the least number of votes would serve a two-year term, meaning they would run again in 2028. The three winning candidates from that election would then serve four-year terms.

If the council were to put the issue of staggered, four-year terms as a ballot referendum and let voters decide, the results of that vote would be binding, according City Attorney Brian Lubkeman.

Like the discussion over pay raises, the council did not come to a clear consensus one way or the other about Read's proposal.

New City Manager Laszlo Palko previously managed Manassas Park, which had staggered, four-year terms for its at-large councilmembers.

"It takes a long time to get things done right," he said. "Having some stability over a four-year period is critical."

Staggered elections every two-years still give the voters a voice every to respond to council actions and effect change, according to Palko. It's not a wholesale change, but allows the council to make adjustments to its long-term planning every two years.

The council agreed to table the four-year term proposal for further discussion at a future meeting.