Ramsey County commissioners held a public hearing Tuesday on a proposed salary increase of 3% for board members.
The seven-member board is expected to vote on the proposed salary increase July 1, with the increase effective Jan. 1. Board members currently make $104,077 per year and the board chair makes $109,338. If the proposal is approved next week, salaries would increase to $107,199 for commissioners and $112,559 for the board chair.
County employees with settled bargaining agreements and unrepresented employees received a general wage increase of 3% in 2025. The board typically sets commissioner salary increases at a rate that matches general wage increases for county employees in the previous year, according to county officials.
Increasing commissioner salaries isn’t going to improve anything in the county, which has a median income of around $20,000 less than commissioners’ current salaries, said Greg Copeland, a St. Paul resident and former candidate for state office, during Tuesday’s public hearing.
“I don’t know how many county employees — and some of you are here today, presumably county employees — are getting a $3,100-plus annual raise. So that 3% thing is kind of, well, it’s not very transparent,” Copeland said.
In Ramsey County, salary increases were approved last year, going from $101,280 to $104,077 for commissioners and from $104,477 to $109,338 for the chair.
The current annual salary for commissioners in Hennepin County is $128,337, according to Hennepin County officials. A July proposal by Hennepin County commissioners to increase their annual salaries to $182,141 was later withdrawn following pushback from county residents.
In 2022, the League of Minnesota Cities conducted a study of commissioner salaries across the state, at the time putting Ramsey County commissioners at just over $97,000 and those in Hennepin County at nearly $114,000. The base salary for Washington County commissioners at the time was about $72,000. In Carver and Anoka counties, it was $75,000.
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