Mayor Coleen Seng won’t be getting a raise next year. And neither will the mayor who takes office in the spring.

Not that the decision was tied to Seng’s job performance, but the City Council on Monday voted down a proposal to raise the mayor’s salary from the current $74,909 by 2.5 percent each of the next four years.

That means the mayor’s salary will continue to drop down the list of top city salaries; it currently doesn’t rank among the top 100 city employee salaries.

Seng earns less than all of her cabinet members.

The mayor’s paycheck hasn’t changed since 1998. It could have been bumped up in 2002, but former Mayor Don Wesely asked that his salary remain frozen in light of wage concessions he sought from city employees.

“It has not moved since then,”  city-county Personnel Director Don Taute said.

The mayor’s salary can only be changed every four years, and if the council were going to do it, the new salary would have had to be effective by January, Taute said. He proposed the raise, thinking it would be an improvement but do nothing to make up for the six years it has remained unchanged.

“I didn’t think two-and-a-half percent was outrageous,” Taute said after the council vote.

But Councilman Jon Camp said the council should set an example in light of the news last week that the city is projecting a nearly $9 million budget deficit in 2007-08.

In arguing against the raise, Camp apologized to the councilman to his left, Ken Svoboda — who is running for mayor in the spring. Svoboda, coincidentally, was joined by Councilwoman Robin Eschliman in voting for the raise.

Svoboda and Seng both voted to increase Wesely’s salary when he was mayor.

After the meeting, Councilman Dan Marvin said it was bad timing to seek a raise in the mayor’s salary on the same day the mayor announced a hiring freeze. He said it would send the wrong message to the community.

He also didn’t think it was appropriate to give the raise when other mayors’ salaries in the region were “all over the map,” depending upon whether they have city managers,  in which case the mayor is more of a ceremonial position.

“The person’s getting paid $75,000 now,” Marvin said. “A two-and-a-half percent increase is not going to make the job that much better. It’s not going to do a lot.”

Councilwoman Annette McRoy also said it was a bad time to boost the salary.

“The next mayor is not in the job for the paycheck,” she said. “I think it’s a very fair salary for a city this size.”

Councilwoman Patte Newman agreed, saying, “People don’t run for mayor because of the salary.”

And what did the mayor think?

“It’s up to the council to decide and they’ve done it,” said her chief of staff, Mark Bowen. “It is a council decision.”

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.