Hennepin County Board tables vote on proposed 49% pay raise

Hennepin County Board members tabled their vote on a nearly 50% pay raise for themselves on Tuesday.

As reported by 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS, a committee approved the salary cap increase last week, but not every commissioner is for it. If approved, the board members would be making more than $182,000 a year, a 49% pay raise from their current $122,000 salary.

Irene Fernando, the Board Chair, says she’s trying to catch commissioners up to where other county executives are at, which can be a tricky comparison because of how populated the county is.

Hennepin County has more than double the population of Ramsey County, whose commissioners approved a raise for themselves last month to $104,077 – a raise of 2.76%. According to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, Gov. Walz currently receives a salary of $127,629 annually.

Last week, a Hennepin County Committee advanced the measure to Tuesday by a vote of 4-2, with pushback from some of the board members.

“I know that we’re going to be doing negotiations with labor, and I don’t know anybody that gets a 50% increase,” said Heather Edelson, Vice Chair for the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners.

“If we want to set a legacy for the people who will come after us so that we could good governance, we need to at least get an equitable pay for the people sitting up here on the bench,” said Debbie Goettel, another Hennepin County Commissioner.