‘Forced to take this pay raise’: Quincy City Councilors are collecting the raise they promised to repeal

After a historic election in Quincy — ousting five incumbent Quincy City Council members in November — new councilors are now earning the raises they campaigned on repealing.

The outgoing council approved 50 percent raises, from $29,128.65 to $44,500, for city councilors, which took effect this year. Many the newly elected officials plan to donate all or a portion of their raise, a local paper reports.

Amid the turbulence in Quincy around raises for elected officials and proposed religious statues on a public building, five City Council members were unseated, and the body saw seven new faces starting in January.

“The previous council voted the raises into law without a single public hearing and without reviewing the salaries of any similar elected positions,” newly elected Ward 5 City Councilor Maggie McKee said at a meeting. “This process or lack thereof, eroded the public trust and inspired several of us here to run for office.”

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch’s proposed 79 percent raise, from $159,000 to $285,000 a year, was the first raise for city officials to draw ire after it was approved by the City Council’s finance committee. Originally supposed to take effect in 2025, it’s been adjusted to $225,000 and delayed to 2028.

In a council meeting Feb. 2, councilors sent multiple ordinances to repeal the council and the mayor’s races to the Ordinance Committee for discussion.

The new councilors are unable to immediately repeal or change the raises due to state laws and the Quincy city charter, At-Large Councilor Ziqiang “Susan” Yuan said earlier this month. Yuan, a new councilor, campaigned to rescind the raises and instead “tie any increases to the average raises of city workers.”

“This year we councilors are forced to take this pay raise. For that reason, I know several councilors, including myself, have decided to donate our portion of councilors’ raise to nonprofit organizations,” Yuan said. “We are not eating our words.”

McKee, who ran last year on undoing the raises and bringing “people into the process,” addressed her campaign promises during the Feb. 2 meeting as well. Councilors also brought forward an order for the city solicitor to answer questions about a potential raise deferment.

“The orders I’m submitting tonight are an effort to rebuild that trust by going back to the drawing board and following the transparent and robust process we think should have happened all along,” McKee said. “I hope my fellow councilors will vote to send these orders to the ordinance committee so we can redo the process.”

What will the councilors do with the raise?

Joe Murphy, a founder of A Just Quincy, said the initial deferment of the mayor’s raise until 2028 and the city councilor’s raise to this year “was described publicly as a solution.”

“That lack of clarity is part of what has fueled confusion,” Murphy said in an email. “The new council effectively inherited the compensation structure that had already been codified. At that point, their options became more constrained under state timing rules.”

Many of the councilors did not return a request for comment, but all of the newly elected officials told The Patriot Ledger their plans for their raises. Yuan, who referred requests for comment from Boston.com to her previous comments, said she will donate to nonprofit organizations working to increase public engagement and participation in government.

McKee, who did not return a request for comment, told the Ledger she plans to donate to local food pantries and to Quincy Votes, a nonprofit she founded before leaving to run for office. Council President Anne Mahoney and Ward 4 Virginia Ryan will donate their raises, and Ward 3 Councilor Walter Hubley will donate “a large portion” to a nonprofit, they told the Ledger.

Ward 1 Councilor David Jacobs said he will put his raise into a separate account and donate the difference once a new raise is set, while Ward 6 Councilor Deborah Riley said she will invest the money in a charitable trust, the Ledger reported.

The two councilors from the previous body — Ward 2 Councilor Richard Ash and At-Large Councilor Noel DiBona — did not return a request for comment. DiBona told the Ledger he will also donate “a large portion” of his raise.

Murphy said the councilors are allowed to choose how they want to spend their personal income, but discussions of charities and writing checks back to the city is “largely political theater.”

“If residents are frustrated by the position the current council finds itself in,” Murphy said, “that frustration should be directed at the prior council, which declined to repeal or amend the ordinance while it still had the clear ability to do so.”

Molly Farrar is a general assignment reporter for Boston.com, focusing on education, politics, crime, and more.