City Council votes to raise mayoral and council member salaries

The Eden Prairie City Council on Tuesday unanimously advanced a proposal to raise salaries for the mayor and council members. The increase still requires a second vote to become official.

City Manager Rick Getschow brought up raising the mayor’s salary by $2,000 and council members’ salaries by $1,000. The increases would take effect Jan. 1, 2027, after the November 2026 election.

The current mayoral salary is $18,260, and council members earn $14,137. The increase was first mentioned during July’s council workshop.

Getschow said city staff researched the salaries of mayors and council members in similarly sized cities to determine whether and how much to increase pay.

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Mayor Ron Case said that raising salaries would help Eden Prairie keep up with comparable cities and attract people to the position over time. 

“We’re very cognizant that we want to be comparable in the sense that we are a high-quality city, and we would like the salaries that Eden Prairie city pays to be relative to the idea that we’re, if not the No. 1, we’re a No. 1 city,” Case said. 

Eden Prairie updates officials’ salaries every two years following city elections, and increases with the Consumer Price Index, Getschow said. 

Case said that while some cities increase salaries with the CPI like Eden Prairie, the city was barely keeping up with other comparable cities’ salaries. Though some cities also regularly increase salaries in tandem with the CPI, others instead increase salaries every four to eight years by several thousand dollars. 

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Eden Prairie’s council member salary ranks fourth of the 16 cities used to compare salaries, according to data provided by the city. The city is close behind St. Louis Park and Maple Grove’s council member salaries, which are $14,413 and $15,100, respectively. 

The two other cities ahead of Eden Prairie for council member salaries are Minnetonka and Burnsville, both of which are $18,000, according to the city’s data. 

The Eden Prairie mayor’s salary is a bit further behind, sitting at eighth of the 16 cities used for comparison. Aside from Blaine, whose mayoral salary is $18,315, every other city’s mayoral salary is above $20,000.

The three highest mayoral salaries are in Minnetonka, Burnsville and Bloomington, at $23,500, $24,000 and $26,400, respectively. St. Louis Park, Brooklyn Park and Plymouth also rank higher, with salaries of $20,838, $21,152 and $21,355, respectively.

Because the pay increases would not take effect until after the next election cycle, Case said it is important to remember they are tied to the integrity of the positions and to attracting well-suited candidates.

“Anytime any elected official deals with raising what’s perceived as their own salaries, it’s problematic in our society,” Case said. “That being said, though, we have to sit back as a society and philosophically think about what do we want any of our elected officials to make, whether they’re full time or part time, and what kind of people do we want to be attracted to those positions.”