(The Center Square) – The city of Spokane’s elected officials could receive another salary increase next year, despite back-to-back multi-million-dollar deficits, which some leaders expect to continue in 2027.
The Salary Review Commission meets in even-numbered years to decide whether to provide raises to the mayor and the Spokane City Council. The last time it did so was in 2024, when three commissioners approved salary increases following a flip-flop vote that another member has claimed was illegitimate.
The panel must submit a decision to the city clerk by May 31 for salary increases taking effect in 2027.
The SRC will hold its first meeting of the year on May 8, leaving only a few weeks to make a decision.
“I have my opinions and gut feelings,” Commissioner Reed Jessen told The Center Square when asked about the timing of the meeting. “I’m going to vote no anyway, so I don’t need a lot of research time.”
The SRC set the mayor’s salary at $186,400 for 2026, with the council president at $70,600 and the other six council members at $53,150, for what’s described as a part-time job for the dais on paper.
Council President Betsy Wilkerson told The Center Square in January that she works around 60 hours per week and questioned whether the elected officials should be paid as full-time employees, given the workload.
The last time the SRC approved salary increases in 2024, the council was figuring out how to balance a $25 million deficit heading into 2025.
After raising taxes, Spokane faced another $13 million shortfall heading into 2026, which the dais balanced with additional tax and fee hikes and minor reductions.
“They’re not working for the city, they’re working on behalf of the citizenry,” Jessen said on Tuesday.
“Nobody should be enriching themselves from this,” he said. “It should probably be a volunteer job.”
Councilmember Michael Cathcart told The Center Square on Tuesday that he is still waiting for a hard number, but anticipates the city will face another multi-million-dollar shortfall heading into next year.
While Cathcart is usually the one fiscally conservative member on the council, he said that he has never worked less than full-time since he was first elected in 2019.
He told The Center Square that it’s up to the SRC to decide and explained that he isn’t telling the commission to go one way or another.
“I think it’d be a bit self-serving to ask them to do that straight on, but if they see that as the best direction, and that’s the right thing to do, then you know, that’s their prerogative,” Cathcart said.
Some council members work two jobs to get by; Jessen said they don’t run for office to make money.
He thinks it’s about power and says the real pay is embodying the change their constituents voted for.
“I just have a different view of elected officials. They’re not firefighters, they’re not policemen,” Jessen told The Center Square. “They’re not garbage, maintenance guys or anything. They are politicians.”
Disagreements over 2024 salary increases
Jessen was one of two commissioners who voted against the last salary increases for the council and Mayor Lisa Brown in 2024. He said the process was “really messy,” arguing that the SRC didn’t follow Robert’s Rules of Order, a set of parliamentary procedures around conducting government meetings.
In 2024, just before approving the salary increases, the SRC voted 3-2 to reduce the raises for 2025 and 2026. Jessen voted in support of reducing the scope of the salary increases but ultimately voted against providing the raises altogether, creating some confusion among the other commissioners.
The initial motion to approve the final proposed raises failed 3-2, with Commissioners Lee Taylor and Lori Kinnear, a former council member, joining Jessen in opposition; however, they both voted against the final proposal, because they supported the initial increases that the amendment had just reduced.
They changed their mind after recognizing that the SRC had just decided not to provide raises at all.
“Let’s bring that before us again. Make a motion for this,” Kinnear said in May 2024 after they voted to reject the salary increases for 2025 and 2026. “I’m going to change my vote. It’s got to pass.”
Kinnear requested a “recount,” which City Attorney Mike Piccolo corrected to a motion to reconsider.
Under Robert’s Rules of Order, a motion to reconsider must come from the prevailing party, but it was Commissioner Linda McDermott who made the motion despite being a part of the non-prevailing party.
There was no further debate, and after the motion, Kinnear changed her vote, and the salary increases passed with a 3-2 vote. Jessen called it illegitimate, warning later that Spokane could face lawsuits.
Piccolo explained in an email to Jessen that the commission hasn’t adopted formal rules requiring it to explicitly follow Robert’s Rules of Order.
He told Jessen that the SRC had been “very accommodating,” and wrote in another email that he believed the commission had approved the salary increases.
“I talked to lawyers about filing a lawsuit on my own,” Jessen told The Center Square. “I can’t afford it.”
He said, other than Piccolo or filing a lawsuit, there is no one else to turn to for oversight of the SRC.
“This is a frustrating thing for me as a commissioner,” Jessen said. “I see something going wrong with the city process, and there’s no one to talk to. The city attorney just says this was done appropriately.”
Piccolo did not respond to The Center Square’s request for an interview before publishing.
