Anchorage salary commission drafts a 26% raise for its next elected mayor

Anchorage's next elected mayor would earn about $183,019 a year, a roughly 26% jump from the current $145,392, under a resolution the Salaries and Emoluments Commission had staff begin drafting Thursday. City workers this year are getting raises of 5% to 8%.

Municipal law bars changing the mayor's salary midterm, so the raise couldn't take effect for the sitting mayor and would apply only to whoever wins the 2027 election.

The commission built the figure on six years of accumulated inflation since the last adjustment, which one member calculated at 25.6% using Urban Alaska consumer price index data. The panel had discussed less in June, when member Karen Norsworthy suggested a 5% to 8% adjustment, in line with what some city union contracts had granted.

"My whole instinct is that I'm the taxpayer and I have to pay this, but if I want a good executive, if I want a good mayor, I'm going to have to pay for it," Vice Chair Pat Redmond said. The mayor's pay has sat unchanged for six years while costs and other salaries rose.

Norsworthy said 2026 increases run as high as 8% for firefighters, about 5% for operating engineers and non-represented staff, and 2.5% for executives, all below the 26% proposed for the mayor. For outside comparison, members noted the UAA chancellor makes $314,648 and the Anchorage School District superintendent $250,000.

Staff will bring back the city's own inflation figures, and the commission plans to take public comment on the percentage before acting, with another meeting aimed for mid-August.