Urbana’s elected officials — the mayor, city council and city clerk — may receive raises for the first time since the 2008 recession.

The Urbana City Council unanimously recommended a proposal for moderate raises last week and will formally vote on these raises on Monday.

Historically, salaries of elected officials have been raised to match inflation each fiscal year, but this practice stopped in June 2009.

“We try to keep all the salaries in the city kind of in sync with each other, and before the recession really hit, people were getting 3 percent raises,” Mayor Laurel Prussing said. “We can’t really afford 3 percent anymore, and I don’t think other cities are doing that.”

Because 3 percent raises are no longer plausible, Prussing proposed keeping salaries flat this year, then raising them by 1 percent next year and by 2 percent the following two years.

“What we’re proposing is pretty conservative, and I think very reasonable,” Prussing said. “We expected to start growing again because houses are starting to sell again and prices are going up, but that could take a couple of years, so we’re just trying to set the standard for what we think is reasonable in the light of what our budget is.”

Alderman Charlie Smyth, Ward 1, was in favor of moderate raises but voted against the proposal.

“I want to move away from percentage salary increases,” he said. “It’s a principle when you use percentage-based increases, the rich get richer.”

Smyth suggested fixed dollar amount raises at the meeting, but his proposal did not pass. Although he is opposed to the percentage raises, he still thinks an increase is important.

“I’m in favor of small, moderate increases,” he said. “I think we do have to keep up with inflation (because) it is real work, especially the mayor and clerk’s offices. Those are full-time positions. As a council member, I spend 10-20 hours a week at this, and at 20 hours a week, … a modest increase is not unreasonable.”

Both Prussing and Smyth said when instating raises, they must proceed with caution.

“Our property values have gone down essentially, and we’re now at sort of the bottom of that living average, so our assessed valuation compared to last year is less this year,” Smyth said. “Even though other amounts (of revenue) are going up, that part of our revenue is going down, so we need to be very careful in the coming year to live within our means.”

Alderman Dennis Roberts, Ward 5, said he also thinks the plan is modest.

“It’s an extremely conservative raise offer,” he said. “I think it seems like a just balance between trying to encourage people to enter public office and keeping in mind that the city has a lot of difficulty meeting its obligations and trying to be very conservative.”

Prussing also said raises must start low to maintain a steady budget.

“We have to hold the line; we have to set the example,” she said. “We have labor contracts coming up in the spring, and we don’t want our costs to grow faster than our revenues.”

Chrissy can be reached at [email protected].

Editor’s note: This article has been updated for clarity in voting procedure.