After ten years, the City Council is getting a pay raise. A vast majority of local lawmakers voted to increase their salary by 32 percent Friday, which they justified by making the position full time and getting rid of outside income. Our Courtney Gross was at City Hall and filed the following report.

Friday, City Council members got a little richer.

"Also today we will be voting to set the salaries of all the city's elected officials, which does include council members," said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

With 40 council members voting yes, seven voting against it, and no one abstaining, the City Council overwhelming voted to increase members' salary by 32 percent.

The salary increase went well beyond what an independent commission had recommended at the end of last year.

Right now, the base salary of a council member is $112,500. A member's salary is now going up to $148,500.

That independent commission had recommended their salaries go up to $138,315.

Council members justified the larger raise by making other changes to how the council operates.

They will be full time, and are doing away with outside income and leadership stipends, something almost every lawmaker received.

Seven members — Alan Maisel, Joseph Borelli, Elizabeth Crowley, Chaim Deutsch, Steven Matteo, Eric Ulrich and Paul Vallone — voted against the increase, all of them for a variety of reasons.

"I did what I thought I had to do, and everybody else did what they thought they had to do," Maisel said.

"There was an injustice done today and I'm hoping we can fix that," Vallone said.

Vallone, a lawyer, is one of a handful of members who makes a significant amount of money with his side job.

The ban on outside income would directly affect him.

"You can't pick and choose what professions are acceptable and what professions aren't," Vallone said.

Five of the seven no votes told us they would be accepting the larger salary increase, anyway.

Vallone wasn't clear if he would, and one council member walked away from us when we tried to ask her.

It's unclear how these council members will spend this extra cash — at least for the speaker; she wouldn't tell us.

"I don't think that's a question that needs to be answered," City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said. "You want to be cynical, that's your right, but we are not going to entertain that."