Under a new bill, Mayor Muriel Bowser would get a 10 percent pay increase. (Tyrone Turner / WAMU)

The mayor, chairman of the D.C. Council, and city’s attorney general could be getting a raise in the near future.

A bill was introduced on Friday to give Mayor Muriel Bowser a 10 percent pay bump, increasing her salary to $220,000 a year. And because the chairman and attorney general’s pay are tied to the mayor’s, they too would get a raise: going from $190,000 to $210,000 a year.

“Salaries have not changed in 12 years, and if we do not act now, they will not change for another four years,” said Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who introduced the bill along with Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2).

D.C. law prohibits officials from raising their own pay during their term, so a raise passed before the end of the year would take effect in January, when Bowser, Mendelson, and Attorney General Karl Racine are expected to start new terms in office. All three only face nominal challengers in November’s general election.

Mendelson was careful to contextualize the proposed pay raise — which would require Council approval — by saying that since their last increase 12 years ago, the consumer price index has gone up 24.5 percent, non-union D.C. government employees have seen salaries rise 25.75 percent, and unionized workers have seen an increase of 36 percent. Councilmembers, for their part, have seen salaries rise by 22 percent over that period.

Had the mayor’s salary kept pace with inflation since it was last increased in 2006, it would be $249,000, while the chairman and attorney general would be making $236,000.

“I view this as an institutional issue. The mayor as the chief executive should be paid the highest salary, but this won’t even be close,” said Mendelson. “The attorney general should be paid more competitively with the private sector, and $190,000 is not competitive.”

But that may not mollify some residents and activists, especially since the Council recently repealed Initiative 77, the voter-approved measure that some say would amount to a pay hike for tipped workers across the city. Mendelson and Bowser both opposed the initiative, saying they feared it would drive bars and restaurants out of business.

In 2016, Bowser and the D.C. Council passed a $15 minimum wage in 2016 that will take effect in 2020 (current minimum wage is $13.25).

With the proposed pay increase, Bowser would go from being the eighth-highest paid mayor in the country to the fifth-highest, behind the mayors of San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston, according to Mendelson’s office.

But unlike some of those mayors, D.C.’s chief executive is not provided an official residence. And Bowser would still be making less than dozens of city employees, including the chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, and City Administrator Rashad Young.

Mendelson said the bill would have to go through the regular legislative process, and a public hearing is expected in November.