Local News

Quincy residents want mayor’s hefty raise to go to a citywide vote

Mayor Thomas Koch is pursuing a $285,000 salary, which would be a 79 jump from his current salary of about $159,000.

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch in 2023. Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe

August 7, 2025

2 minutes to read

Quincy residents are galvanizing to slash the proposed nearly-80 percent raise for Mayor Thomas Koch and force all future raises for elected officials to be approved through a citywide vote.

“I can’t see how any mayor or city council would have the power to give themselves raises and not have any kind of feedback,” said Salvatore Balsamo, one of the residents organizing the petition. “It’s not a way to run a government.”

Balsamo is part of a group of residents behind a petition to increase the mayor’s salary instead to $183,000, support an annual 2 percent cost of living raise for all elected officials, and require future pay raises to be approved by a vote.

“We’re not against the mayor having a raise… so that’s why we proposed a 2 percent raise for every year he didn’t receive a raise,” Balsamo said. “That’s how we arrived at the $183,000.”

79 percent raise ‘was a bit shocking’

Koch is pursuing a $285,000 salary, which would be a 79 jump from his current salary of about $159,000. The proposed raises, which included a 50 percent increase for city councilors, came after Koch hired an independent firm to evaluate his salary last year.

The firm recommended a salary between $298,000 to $370,000 salary for the mayor, which could have made him the highest paid mayor in the country. The Quincy City Council approved the $285,000 salary a month later, but after public outcry, the raises were deferred until 2028 for Koch and 2026 for the councilors.

“It was so much greater than what the average person in Quincy makes, and so much higher than the average annual pay increases that our teachers and other city workers get,” said Steven Perdios, another member of the group. “It was a bit shocking.”

Quincy Citizens for a Fair Raise, the resident group, wants to garner 6,000 signatures by Sept. 1, but their official deadline to get the signatures to the city is Sept. 23.

“Nine out of 10 people that hear about it are more than happy to sign and eager to see it on the ballot,” Perdios said, adding that he feels “cautiously optimistic” about getting to the signature goal.

Residents already tried to file a recall petition, but protesters were shy of the signature requirement last year, Boston.com previously reported. Perdios and Balsamo met with the city solicitor and city clerk to confirm this petition can force a citywide ballot.

City Clerk Nicole Crispo told Boston.com that the petition could “possibly” allow a ballot question, and the city solicitor is looking into it.

Koch: ‘I’m the CEO’

Koch’s staff didn’t return a request for comment, but he defended the $285,000 salary during an interview with The Boston Globe, noting he logs 80 hours a week and administers a city budget of nearly half a billion dollars.

“I would do this job for free, because I love what I do. But in reality, I’m the CEO,” Koch said, per the Globe. “If you looked at the CEO role of this job against the private sector, it’d be a half a million dollar salary and it’d be bonuses every year based on what you produce.”

Balsamo and Perdios both dismissed the comparison.

“A CEO has to actually provide a product or a service, and they have to bring in $500 million worth of sales every year in order to maintain that job. The mayor doesn’t have to do that. He gets the $500 million from taxes,” Perdios said. “It’s completely the opposite of what a CEO does. I don’t really understand that analogy at all.”