ROANOKE, Va. – Roanoke City Council members will receive pay raises spread over each of the next three years.
During a special meeting last Friday, the city council voted 4-1 to give itself $20,000 raises starting July 1, 2025. But under an amended version of the ordinance approved on Monday, the raise will instead step up gradually — $10,000 in 2025 and then by $5,000 in 2026 and in 2027.
The two members who voted against the proposal were Stephanie Moon Reynolds and Bev Fitzpatrick. Mayor Sherman Lea, Trish White Boyd, Peter Volosin and Vivian Sanchez Jones voted to approve the raise. Vice-Mayor Joe Cobb was absent.
“We’ve used almost 20+ million dollars of city funds to make sure our employees are paid fairly. I think that it just goes that we should be able to get paid fairly as well,” Volosin said.
Bev Fitzpatrick sat in on his first council meeting as a new council member after he took former councilman Luke Priddy’s seat after Priddy’s resignation.
“Having a 93% increase whether it’s one year or whether it’s five years, to me is not what I feel about what we do as public servants,” Fitzpatrick said.
That deadline was July 5, because under the new state law, city councils must approve these pay raises more than four months before an election, which this year is Nov. 5. Without passing its pay raises this week, the council would’ve had to wait until July 2026 to see them go into effect.
Some members of the community including, Duane Howard, spoke about their frustrations with having no public hearing even though there’s no requirement for one.
“The City of Roanoke is not aware of it. It’s just egregious that they’d do this. A small increase might have been appropriate but not doubling their salaries,” Howard said.
Several members of the council including Mayor Lea won’t reap of the benefits as they are planning on resigning or not running for reelection.
“If we don’t do it at this time, we’re not eligible to do it until 2027. Which means...I’m not getting any of it,” Lea said.