Minneapolis City Council members are paid more than $100,000 annually, which one Republican representative thinks is a “pure rip off of taxpayers.”
State Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, introduced a bill Monday that would prohibit city council salaries from exceeding Minnesota’s median household income of $71,306. According to Garofalo, the only city known to exceed that number is Minneapolis, which now pays its city councilors $106,101 per year.
Both the mayor and council members received pay raises this year, the Star Tribune reported. Council pay jumped from $103,590 to $106,101, while Mayor Jacob Frey’s salary increased from $132,804 to $136,011.
For comparison, St. Paul, the second-largest city, pays its city councilors $68,203 annually, followed by Rochester at $39,420, Bloomington at $29,616, and Duluth at $13,800.
“Salaries for the Minneapolis City Council are completely out of touch when compared to other large cities statewide,” Garofalo said in a press release. “It is unacceptable that the Minneapolis City council continues to collect salaries in excess of $100,000. The fact that they do this as they move to defund police and fail to provide basic services for residents is unconscionable.”
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
