Painesville City Council recently voted to increase pay for future council terms. The raises were approved 5-0 on Oct. 21, with council members Paul Hach and Mario Rodriguez absent during the vote. The decision will increase the annual pay for council president from about $8,000 to about $11,800 and the annual pay for other council members from about $7,000 to about $10,000. Council adopted its last pay increase in 2019. “Several years ago, council looked at council salary, and it was, according to Paul Hach at the time, it was about 20 years since council salary was looked at, so it was upped at that moment,” said Council President Jim Fodor at the meeting. “There was a determination by council that every couple years then, during the off election year, that we would look at council pay, we would do a survey of the surrounding communities and then bring back legislation to make sure that we were being competitive or equal to the communities around us,” Fodor added. He compared Painesville’s council salary to the annual council salaries of Eastlake, Mentor, Willoughby, Wickliffe and Willowick at a previous meeting. Those salaries ranged from $7,600 in Wickliffe to $16,300 in Mentor. Painesville City Council chose to raise its council member and council president salaries to match those of Willoughby. Councilwoman Lori DiNallo discussed additional reasons for supporting the salary increases. “Not only because we want to be competitive with surrounding communities, but we also want to draw and encourage members of our community to be eager to want to be on council,” DiNallo said. “And the role of council…you’re a click away from everybody who wants anything, so the amount of time that you’re spending with your constituents is different than it was all those years ago,” she added. Council members will not realize the increased pay until the start of their next terms. The next terms for council’s three at-large members are set to start in January 2026, after the November 2025 elections, while the next terms for council members representing the city’s four wards are set to start in January 2028, after the November 2027 elections. State law prohibits raising or lowering an elected official’s salary in the middle of a term. The council raises came after council approved new collective bargaining agreements and pay increases for city employees earlier this year. According to city records, the new agreements will provide employees with 5 percent raises in 2024, 3 percent raises in 2025 and 3 percent raises in 2026.