The Indianola Board of Aldermen voted 3-2 on Monday night to approve for themselves a $10,000 a year raise, more than doubling their salaries.
The motion to approve the raises to $1,500 per month per alderman was made by Ward 4 Alderman Marvin Elder. He and Ward 3 Alderman Ruben Woods and Ward 5 Alderman Sam Brock voted in favor.
Ward 1 Alderman Gary Fratesi and Ward 2 Alderman Darrell Simpson voted no.
The mayor’s salary was not included in the pay hike.
Salaries for the aldermen will rise, effective immediately, from $8,000 per year to $18,000 per year, a 125%
increase.
Mayor and aldermen salaries vary throughout the state, as municipalities are given the power to set those.
In comparison to a couple of nearby cities, Indianola, which has a population just under 10,000, will pay its aldermen $2,000 less than Greenville, which has a population of 33,418, according to the 2021 Mississippi Municipal League survey of municipal salaries.
Cleveland, according to the survey, paid its aldermen $13,000 at the time of the survey.
Brookhaven, which has a population of about 12,000, paid its aldermen just over $18,000 a year, and the coastal city of Bay Saint Louis, which has almost the exact same size population as Indianola, paid its aldermen $16,800 in 2021.
This move does not come as a complete shock, as the board approved the 2025 fiscal year budget last month with $50,000 more in the legislative salary line item than last year.
It does come weeks after the board informed department heads that there would be zero employee raises during this fiscal year.
The board did walk that back somewhat during its last regular meeting when it awarded a $3 an hour across the board raise to the city’s police officers, although at least some of the money for those raises could be covered by already budgeted yet unfilled positions within that department.
