INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Marion County elected officials will get big raises after a vote Monday night by the Indianapolis City-County Council.

The decision came as unions representing other city employees are negotiating for raises of their own.

One of those unions is American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 725, which represents Department of Public Works employees. They’re the people who fix Indianapolis roads.

Vince Gartin, a Public Works employee, is chief union steward for the local AFSCME union. On the potential for better pay, he said, “We’re really looking forward to it. We went many years without even getting a raise.”

The negotiations came on the heals of the vote Monday. It approved raises of at least 42% for elected officials including the county assessor, auditor, clerk, coroner, recorder, surveyor, and treasurer.

At the Monday meeting where the vote was taken, City-County Council Member Dan Boots, a Democrat, said, “These elected officials have had a flat salary for nearly 15 years without even a mere or simple cost-of-living adjustment. Starting at their salary 15 years ago adding an annual cost-of-living adjustment each of those years, arriving at the current number.”

City-County Council President Vop Osili, also a Democrat, told I-Team 8 “These salary adjustments for elected officials will not impact negotiations with union contracts, as they come from entirely separate funding sources and are financially marginal in comparison to the number of union employees impacted by these negotiations.”

Steven Quick, president of AFSCME Local 725, would not talk specific numbers of what they’re looking for, but he said the union is doing a market analysis for wages. “We’re looking at those numbers to kind of get a feel for where we should be at. I think everybody’s on the same page on the administration side and the union side that it’s time for the employees to get an increase.”

Public Works employees don’t have the only unions negotiating a new contract for city employees.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, the Marion County Sheriff’s Department, and the firefighters union have been negotiating with the city as the 2025 budget has been working its way through the City-County Council. A final decision on that could come by October.