Committee recommends 3% pay increase for Lawrence elected officials as part of 2026 budget review

The Lawrence City council committee voted unanimously to recommend Ordinance Proposal 8 20 25 — an ordinance fixing compensation for elected officials of Lawrence, Indiana, for 2026 — sending a recommendation for a 3% pay increase to the full council.

The recommendation was made during the committee meeting after the ordinance was read into the record by the city clerk. Councilor Zach moved to recommend a 3% raise for elected officials; Councilor Massilla seconded the motion. The committee vote was 100% in favor.

The move came amid broader budget discussions and concerns about an unbalanced budget for 2026. Committee members asked whether the clerk could be excluded from a group decision on raises. Legal counsel indicated that, if the clerk is an elected official, she would fall under that category. The controller advised the committee on aggregate cost implications: “I did a calculation for all the civil… it ranges about 145 to 150,” which committee members and staff discussed as a rough range for a related civil-service pay increase.

Members noted that including elected officials with a broader civil increase would not materially change the overall cost. One councilor summarized that excluding elected officials from a civil-side raise “doesn't move the needle at all,” and observed that regularly excluding elected officials had left pay out of parity with similar cities.

The committee recorded the recommendation to forward the ordinance to full council for final action. The recommendation is advisory to the full council and does not itself change pay until council approval and any necessary budget adjustments occur.

The clerk read the ordinance into the record as Proposal 8 20 25. The committee did not set final effective dates or appropriation line changes in committee; those details will be considered during the full-council budget process.