WHITESTOWN, Ind. -- At a town council meeting Wednesday, a proposal on the table would've raised Whitestown council members' salaries by 200%. After some pushback, they voted to move forward with a lower but still significant raise. Right now, they make $4,800 annually – and considered tripling that to $14,400, not long after an election. "Companies don't bring on new employees and give them raises immediately," said Whitestown resident Phillip Snoeberger during public comment. Snoeberger ran for a seat last year and lost. He said public service shouldn't be about the money. "If it was incrementally increased, I feel like that would be a lot more easy to stomach for a lot of residents," Snoeberger told FOX59/CBS4. "But 200% - while the dollar amount doesn’t seem like a huge amount, when you look at it from a percentage increase – I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t be shocked." Current council member Cheryl Hancock shared his concern. "We haven't done anything this year to show that we have earned an increase that big," Hancock said during the meeting. "In order for us to see that big of a jump, all of us on the council need to do a lot more," Hancock told FOX59/CBS4. "I didn't run for the pay." Council members discussed the issue at length during the meeting, saying in order to be competitive with neighboring municipalities and keep up with both inflation and population growth, they must raise the salary to some degree. "This town has grown since 2004 at a 255% rate, so for us to raise council pay from 2004 to 2025 at 200% doesn't seem like it'd be too far out of line," said council member Courtenay Smock. "You also don't want to incentivize poor behaviors, corruptive behaviors, for lack of a better term," said council vice president Eric Nichols. According to a survey conducted by Accelerating Indiana Municipalities (AIM), in similarly-sized Speedway, council members currently bring home the same amount as Whitestown's. But in the smaller town of Yorktown, they make $7,500. And in the even smaller town of Bargersville, they make $12,000. Ultimately, Whitestown council members voted in favor of raising their salaries roughly 108%, which amounts to $10,000 next year. "More public opinion would be really nice at a lot of our council meetings, especially on topics like this," Hancock added. "We don’t get a lot of turnout for these board meetings, so I don’t think a lot of people realize what is going on," Snoeberger said. "It’s your town, you’re paying for these salaries. It should be important to you.”