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The City Council on Monday voted unanimously to keep the current compensation for mayor and council members for fiscal 2010, but not before one council member proposed reducing the annual stipends by more than 25 percent two years beyond that.

Council members agreed that given the recession, this is not a good year to accept the 2 percent increase recommended by the city's Compensation Commission.

"No, thank you, I suppose is the only way I can put it," Councilwoman Phyllis R. Marcuccio said. " … We certainly know this is not the time."

The recommendation for an increase was based on the change in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Washington-Baltimore Consumer Price Index from November 2007 to November 2008.

The council voted 4-1 to accept the recommendation for an increase in fiscal 2011 and part of 2012 based on a positive change, if any, in the Consumer Price Index.

Councilman Piotr Gajewski opposed that recommendation and proposed reducing the annual stipend for the mayor from $25,750 to 19,000 and for council members from $20,600 to $15,000. Gajewski estimates that would save the city $30,000.

His proposal is similar to the Gaithersburg mayor and council members' compensation, which will be 18,500 and 15,000, respectively, effective this November, according to a comparative chart from Rockville City Clerk Claire Funkhouser.

"Because times are tough and because we are cutting other priorities … everyone seems to agree that the compensation is supposed to represent reimbursement of some kind rather than a salary," Gajewski said Tuesday. "That being the case, it's way too high."

That suggestion failed for lack of a second.

"I'm a little bit disappointed that none of my council colleagues even gave it a second thought," Gajewski said.