HOULTON – It is up to town councilors Monday to decide whether those who follow in their footsteps should get more money for serving the public.

Residents will have a chance to voice their opinions during a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 14, at the municipal building.

Last year, the council agreed to consider raising the annual stipend from $500 to $1,000. The council also will weigh raising the chairman’s stipend from $600 to $1,200.

Councilors now are paid roughly $20.83 to preside over each meeting. The increase would boost that rate to approximately $41.60.

Councilors attend about 24 meetings a year, along with additional committee meetings.

Any increase in salary would not affect the current panel. A raise would affect only future councils because the current board cannot increase the stipend for itself.

There have been mixed feelings among the members about the idea of making any changes to the current salary.

Gerald Adams, who is now council chairman, first broached the topic last September. He later withdrew the request in light of a looming tax cap referendum, which many thought would gut most of the town’s assets.

The referendum was defeated statewide last Nov. 2. Later, Adams said he could “go either way.”

Councilor Paul Cleary resurrected the issue last December, saying that he didn’t feel that any board member was doing the job to get rich, but that the process was becoming more time-consuming.

“We were told that being a councilor meant going to two meetings a month,” he said in December. “It is not two meetings a month. … As a councilor, you can put a lot of time into this.”

Councilor Phil Bernaiche was adamantly against a pay raise.

At a meeting last month, Councilor Carl Lord called on members of the public to let the council know their opinions on the idea.

“I’m having a hard time with this,” he said last month, noting that he hadn’t heard from many residents who were opposed to a pay increase. “I would like to hear the public’s thoughts on the idea so that I could make a better decision.”