The Board of Aldermen of New Bern recently met to discuss an increase in their salaries.

Four of seven members voted against the 7 percent raise.

While there were some who felt strongly about the board receiving the raise, there were others who believed taxpayer dollars could be better served in other areas.

Alderwoman Jameesha Harris was one of the members who voted in favor of the raise.

“It’s not that someone doesn’t want to do it for free, but when you sign up, you know the rules and regulations, and you know that elected officials should be compensated and if we do analysis on positions for people that work in the city and those are done every few years, it makes sense that regardless if you agree to the increase or not, it should be increased to go along with inflation,” Harris said.

She said it’s been about 15 years since the board has had a pay raise, saying the pay they receive does not equate to the amount of work they do.

While Alderwoman Sabrina Bengel agrees the board does work hard, she said the New Bern Aldermen pay is higher than other cities in Eastern North Carolina.

She said this, along with other reasons, is why she decided to vote against the raise.

“I feel strongly that we know what the salary is going in, it doesn’t equate to much, I mean we are public servants, it is not the pay that drives us to take these jobs. Believe me, nobody will do this job for the amount of money that we make, but I would rather spend taxpayer dollars toward other items, than I would towards the salary,” Bengel said.

When asked what she thought about the pay for New Bern Aldermen in comparison to other cities in the region, Harris said this.

“You can’t judge every city on what they’re getting paid because they may be larger cities, but they may not have, you know, the work that we have to do in our community. Like they say all the time on this board, New Bern is unique and you know there’s uniqueness within each ward and there’s a lot of things that need to be accomplished in these wards,” Harris said.

For now, the future of the pay raise for the board is unknown at this time.

**An earlier version of this story stated that three, not four, board members voted against the pay raise.