Langley Council Rejects Proposal to Raise Mayor's Salary

Langley city council members voted against a motion on November 21, 2025 that would have funded a raise for the mayor by cutting a planned cost of living adjustment for staff and eliminating council stipends. The measure failed with unanimous opposition, including from the councilmember who proposed it, leaving the mayor on the current annual salary of twelve thousand dollars.

Councilmember Rhonda Salerno floated the idea during the meeting, suggesting a reduction in the cost of living adjustment from 2.7 percent to 1.7 percent and the elimination of council stipends in order to reallocate roughly thirteen thousand six hundred dollars toward mayoral pay. Salerno calculated that decreasing the COLA would free about five thousand four hundred seventy five dollars, while removing council stipends would generate about eight thousand one hundred thirty dollars. Since 2024 some council members have been receiving one hundred twenty five dollars per month, and in 2026 stipends will be equalized across the council with members retaining the option to forgo them.

The mayoral salary was set at twelve thousand dollars in 2023 with the expectation that a city administrator would assume many daily administrative duties. The last person in that administrator role left in January 2024, and Mayor Kennedy Horstman has chosen not to hire a replacement because the city cannot afford the position. The funding debate highlighted competing priorities between compensating elected officials and maintaining pay for municipal employees.

Salerno framed her proposal in social equity terms while arguing that compensating the mayor should be a priority. "I know that we had social justice reasons for doing that, for making it available to people who needed child care and making it more accessible to the public to become a council member, but at this point, I think that the paying of our mayor is more important," Salerno said.

Horstman expressed reluctance to accept a pay increase at the expense of staff, emphasizing her commitment to fiscal recovery. "I took this job on understanding that it would be my responsibility to turn the finances of the city around, and I’m committed to that," Horstman said. "And when the finances of the city have been turned around, I will take a paycheck." She further noted that city employees did not receive a cost of living increase last year and warned that service continuity depends on fair staff compensation. "If we want the city to continue to function, we have to compensate our staff," she said.

Councilmember Craig Cyr asked Salerno to withdraw the motion, and Salerno ultimately did not press it. Horstman plans to approach council members privately in 2026, when three new members join the body, to ask them to consider forgoing stipends so the mayor might be compensated. For Island County residents the outcome underscores tensions in small town governance between equitable access to public office, fiscal stewardship, and the capacity of local government to sustain staffing and services without further reductions.