Minneapolis council considers giving mayor $46,000 raise and themselves raises in 2 years

The Minneapolis City Council on Monday is expected to discuss giving Mayor Jacob Frey a raise of over $46,000 next year, and themselves raises in two years.

If approved — a final vote could come as soon as Tuesday — the salary increases would go to the mayor for approval.

The raises are recommended by the city clerk’s office, two years after a salary survey found the mayor’s salary lags peers and council members’ salary ahead of peers in comparable cities.

The Minneapolis mayor’s salary of nearly $141,000 is nearly $57,000 lower than the average in 19 other comparable cities, according to a study done by Guidehouse, an artificial intelligence-led professional services firm. That puts Minneapolis in the bottom 15%.

Frey makes nearly $13,000 less annually than the St. Paul mayor, who is paid $153,579, even though Minneapolis has about 120,000 more residents.

With the average salary for comparable cities’ mayors expected to increase to nearly $206,000 next year, City Clerk Casey Carl recommended increasing the salary to $187,000 through 2029.

Carl said the goal was to right-size the compensation and recognize the expanded authority and responsibility of the mayor after Minneapolis voters approved a strong-mayor, weak-council system in 2021. Prior to that, the city had a relatively weak mayor and strong council.

Under a process created by the council that follows state law, council members and the mayor set the salaries to take effect the next elected term, when four new council members join the body for four-year terms.

But Frey wants to change the process so that the Minneapolis Charter Commission assumes responsibility for deciding instead. In a letter to the commission, Frey wrote, “No elected official looks forward to making a decision on their own salary, and I am no different.”

Frey said moving the decision to the Charter Commission would help the city attract quality candidates while maintaining “fiscally reasonable compensation level.”

While the mayor is underpaid, Minneapolis council members are overpaid compared to their peers.

In 2023, Guidehouse found Minneapolis council members, who are paid nearly $110,000 annually, were at the top of the scale among nine peer cities, with only Seattle council members paid more. The study found Minneapolis council members were paid nearly $29,000 more than the average.

For that reason, the Minneapolis council voted not to increase its pay for the 2024-2025 term. During the decade prior, the council approved raises averaging about 2% a year.

Their salaries are still about $4,000 higher than their peers in comparable cities, but their peers’ pay is expected to increase to just over $112,000 next year. So without any changes during the next term, Minneapolis council members will fall to the middle of the pack or slightly lower.