The Portsmouth City Solicitor will be making an increased salary of $85,000 per year come January, but the vote by City Council was not unanimous.

Councilman and Mayor Sean Dunne said the expenditure was not only inadvisable but went against advice from experts. He pointed to the city’s housing crisis, the 14th Street Community Center, and code enforcement as better places for the city to spend tax dollars.

“We’ve been paying advisers to provide us with various types of advice … they’ve advised us to spend money in certain ways, and this isn’t one of them,” Dunne said. “By directing this money to the city solicitor position, we are prioritizing that instead of assisting code enforcement.”

Dunne also said the way the ordinance came about was against what the city has done in the past as far as raises for elected positions. The city has made salary decisions well before the deadline for individuals to file to run for elected offices. In this case, the deadline is passed with only one name on the ballot for city solicitor.

“What we’ve done is hoodwinked the public,” Dunne said. “We’ve allowed this deadline to expire and now there’s just one person involved, we don’t have anyone putting their names for it.”

The current solicitor is John Haas. His is also the only name Portsmouth’s voters will see on the ballot for city solicitor when they vote in November.

“If we’re about the position, we should also be about the procedure and the process,” Dunne said. “Less than a month to go, we’re now increasing the amount for the position after people have decided not to put their names on the ballot.”

Dunne suggested making the salary increase effective for the next term, but the rest of City Council voted to send it through with a 5-1 vote with Dunne being the only vote against. The pay increase will be effective in January 2024.

Calling it a “misuse of city money,” Dunn said: “”This is in my view not being fiscally conservative. We are prioritizing a position that already has a person. We’re not spending it on the 14th Street Community Center. We are not spending it on … code enforcement in the middle of a housing crisis. We’re prioritizing bonus pay to a city solicitor.”

Councilwoman Lyvette Mosley asked about whether the community center had asked for more funding in the two years since the they had last approached City Council. Vice Mayor Charlotte Gordon said that at that time it was decided for the city to give the 501(c)3 $20,000 for each of two years.

“They haven’t had the opportunity to do so becayse we said we were slowly implementing increases,” Dunne said.

Gordon pushed back on the implication that Council was neglecting the center and the pay raise for the solicitor was unnecessary.

“We have not neglected them. They did come forward, and we did give them a generous amount compared to what we’ve given other 501(c)3s,” she said. “When council voted it down earlier this year, it was a much higher amount” that was being asked of the city and both parties went back to work on what the city could offer.

“To imply this is fiscally irresponsible is wrong,” Gordon said.