Longmont City Council will hear from a working group Tuesday on the possibility of raising the minimum wage regionally.
Longmont is a member of the Boulder County Consortium of Cities, of which some members are interested in collaborating to study, engage and potentially enact a regional minimum wage across participating jurisdictions in Boulder County.
Per a 2019 Colorado law, municipalities have the right to set their own minimum wage for employees in their city within certain requirements. The current minimum wage in Colorado and therefore Longmont, which does not currently have a local minimum wage, is $13.65.
The Minimum Wage Working Group includes representatives from Boulder County, Boulder, Louisville and Longmont. According to a memo to the council, at this time a target wage has not been identified, and there have been some limited check-ins with stakeholders, but not a full community engagement effort yet.
Possible target wage approaches that will be outlined to the council on Tuesday included a self sufficiency proposal, created by the Colorado Center for Law and Policy, which would include raising the minimum wage to $15.41 in 2024 and increasing by 12.9% each year until 2028 to achieve a target minimum wage of $25 an hour.
Another proposal would be to align the minimum wage with the City Workforce Living Wage of $17.42 an hour or aligning with Denver, where the local minimum wage will be an estimated $20.20 in 2027.
Staff added that any work done in collaboration with the consortium does not change the fact that each municipality will make their own decision about minimum wage, and continued participation does not commit council to an outcome.
