Amid growing controversy over a Baltimore County Council vote in November 2024 that would double pensions for five of its seven members, two of them proposed legislation to roll that decision back.

But not all the council members agree that’s the solution to what has become a public-relations problem — members giving themselves a large retirement boost as most of them exit what has been a part-time job.

Mike Ertel and Izzy Patoka, both Democrats, introduced legislation Feb. 16 to repeal the pension increase bill, which tied council members’ retirement compensation to future members’ salaries. The council discussed the repeal at a Tuesday afternoon work session.

Councilman Wade Kach, a Republican who’s retiring, introduced the increase because, he said, council pensions did not get cost-of-living increases and were not keeping up with inflation.

Five of the seven council members voted to approve Kach’s measure. Republican Todd Crandell was absent. Only Ertel voted no; he said then, and says now, it never sat right with him to vote for the increase.

Kach has said he believed the increases under the bill would be modest.

But the council subsequently voted to expand from seven to nine members, a measure voters approved. It included a stipulation that the nine-member council be compensated as full-time employees.

Last month, as a result, the county’s personnel board recommended doubling council members’ pay from $69,000 to $140,000. That increase would align pay for council members in the state’s third largest county with salaries in similar jurisdictions.

If the County Council approves the recommended raises, Kach’s bill would bump his, Crandell’s and Democrat Julian Jones’ annual pensions to $84,000 each. Republican David Marks’ pension would jump to $98,000, and Patoka’s would increase to $60,000.

Democrat Pat Young is the youngest member and has only served one term, so his increase would be negligible and unavailable for at least a decade. Ertel has also only served one term and is running for another, so he also wouldn’t benefit until later.

County residents expressed outrage that the council approved the increase while many struggle and other retirees — including teachers, police officers, firefighters and nurses — did not see similar pension bumps.

Nick Stewart, a business attorney running for county executive, has made the pension increases a campaign issue. He is asking for donations to help stop them and sharing explainer videos in which he accuses his rivals of a well-orchestrated grift.

“There’s nothing inherently wrong with full-time salaries,” Stewart said at the Tuesday work session. “It’s the fact that your pensions are now based on future salaries you never earned.”

Without naming Stewart, Patoka, who’s also running for county executive, bristled at the “many, many people with their own narratives they’re trying to create” that suggest the council conspired to enrich themselves and already approved the salaries.

Young and Jones, who are also running for county executive, say they don’t like the pension boost, either, but they’ve offered different fixes.

Jones wants to introduce a charter amendment to make the council part-time again — a difficult sell since the county elections filing deadline was Tuesday and candidates expect the job to be full-time, with pay to match.

Patoka, who pushed for the expansion, said the main reason to make council positions full-time and relatively well paid was to attract more diverse candidates. To that end, the changes were successful.

Young said he’s upset about the whole process, which lumped too many pieces together, such as the pension bump being linked to the council expansion. He voted against the expansion because of what he said was a lack of transparency about the new district maps.

Kach has said the problem is not the coupling of pensions to future salaries, but the “ridiculously” high salaries proposed by the personnel board; he’s proposing lowering the full-time salary and leaving the pensions linked. Kach said the General Assembly links pensions to salary increases; however, General Assembly salaries are less than half of what the board proposed for the council.

The council will vote on repealing the pension increases by the end of March. Members have to vote on new salaries by November; they can cut the amount but can’t increase it.