City Council term limits put to a vote From the cover
The background
The specifics
City - Population McKinney (current) - 214,810 McKinney (proposed)
Council annual compensation
Mayor annual compensation
Proposition B, if approved, would see an increase in pay for council members. All council members currently receive $50 per City Council meeting attended, a $100 monthly cell phone allowance and the mayor also receives an additional $100 stipend monthly. The pay was set in 2001. Beller said the rate increase would “lower the barrier” for future City Council members. “We need good leadership in this community, and that doesn’t need to be isolated to those that can afford to run a campaign or take unpaid time out of their day,” he said. Paul Chabot, who leads the Collin County Citizens for Integrity PAC, said the council’s choice to put Proposition B on the ballot was “tone deaf.” “So many people are hurting financially with inflation in McKinney,” he said. “This is not the right time to ask citizens to give you a raise.” If approved, Proposition B would be effective beginning Oct. 1, 2025, meaning it would not affect any council members currently serving or
$4,200
$5,400
A 21-person charter review committee was convened by the council in May and charged with reviewing four key areas of the city’s charter—council term lengths and limits, council member compensation and the composition of the council. Only three of the four propositions were formally recommended by the commission— propositions B, C and D. The committee gave no formal guidance on Proposition A, which could increase the current two-term limit for council members. A poll of the committee conducted in July indicated that eight members supported retaining a two-term limit, 11 members supported increasing the limit to three terms and two members were in favor of allowing more than three terms. The council ultimately decided the specific propositions to be included on the ballot in a 5-1 vote on Aug. 6, with council member Justin Beller voting against and council member Charlie Philips absent. “That commission shared their preferences to the council on several issues,” Beller said in an email. “It was my preference to put all of those initiatives to the citizens for a vote, but council chose to only put two of them.”
$9,000
$12,000
Frisco - 236,483 Prosper - 42,598 Celina - 45,854 Allen - 106,009
$8,400
$10,200
$0
$0
$0
$0
$4,500
$7,500
Plano - 294,152
$12,000
$24,000
NOTE: COMPENSATION FOR EXPENSE REIMBURSEMENTS NOT INCLUDED SOURCES: CITY OF ALLEN, CITY OF CELINA, CITY OF FRISCO, CITY OF MCKINNEY, CITY OF PLANO, CITY OF PROSPER, NORTH CENTRAL TEXAS COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS/ COMMUNITY IMPACT
any elected in the May 2025 election. Increased compensation would cost the city about $66,000 annually, which the city’s Director of Strategic Services Trevor Minyard said is “unlikely to significantly impact the overall budget or tax rate.”
McKinney charter amendment elections
The background
10 propositions, all passed
2001
Proposition A
• Turnout: 3,615 voters - 15.1% • Set 3-year term lengths and term limits • Set a per-meeting stipend
Council members began considering calling a charter amendment election in January, with the option to add it to the May ballot. The council chose to wait until the November general election in hopes of a higher turnout, Mayor George Fuller said at a May 7 meeting. “[If] we’re going to put something on the ballot, this November being a presidential election, [I] couldn’t imagine a higher turnout,” Fuller said. The charter review committee was convened in May and met four times prior to forming recommendations. “We took a number of samples and polls ... As we all became more educated about what the topic was, the results changed,” Charter commission chairman Bill Cox said. Municipalities must wait a minimum of two years between calling for a charter amendment election, Minyard said. The city’s most recent charter amendment election was conducted in 2019. The council term limits and compensation struc- ture currently in place were set in a 2001 charter amendment election, which saw just over 3,000 votes cast on each of those propositions, according to the Collin County Elections Office.
Shall Section 9 of the McKinney City Charter be amended to provide that mayor and city council members shall have term limits consisting of three (3) consecutive, four (4) year terms beginning with the 2025 election?
2004
2 propositions
• Turnout: 8,133 voters - 16.4% • 1 item for general charter cleanup, passed • 1 item to remove the cap for council meeting stipends, failed
Proposition B
Shall Section 16 of the McKinney City Charter be amended to provide for compensation of $750 per month for newly-elected council members and $1,000 per month for newly- elected mayor beginning October 1, 2025?
3 propositions, all passed
• Turnout: 1,599 voters - 2.4% • Shifted council from 3- to 4-year term lengths and clarified term limits
2011
Proposition C
Shall the McKinney City Charter be amended throughout to correct non-substantive errors such as misspellings, punctuation, grammar and sentence structure and revise references to obsolete provisions of state law and harmonize conflicting sections and conform notice and publication requirements to state law?
2014
10 propositions, all passed
• Turnout: 2,011 voters - 2.5% • Removed the cap for council meeting stipends, among other changes
Proposition D
2 propositions, all passed
2019
• Turnout: 7,087 voters - 6.9% • Enacted changes to the recall election process
Shall the McKinney City Charter be amended to delete provisions, practices and policies which are no longer employed by the City of McKinney?
SOURCE: COLLIN COUNTY ELECTIONS/COMMUNITY IMPACT
SOURCE: CITY OF MCKINNEY/COMMUNITY IMPACT
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