Washington’s City Council is considering a proposal by one of its own to reduce a council member’s pay should a council member be absent from a meeting and the absence is not excused.

Councilman Doug Mercer brought up the proposal during the council’s Nov. 18 meeting. Mercer suggested a council member’s monthly pay be reduced by a specific amount if he or she misses one meeting a month or by another specified amount if he or she misses two meetings a month,

The council regularly meets on the second and fourth Mondays of each month, with some exceptions usually because of holidays or conflicts with other council-related functions. Council members make $6,117 annually, which equates to $509.75 per month.

“I’m certainly not trying to pick on any one individual, but we all receive a small salary every month. I think most of us know for the last several months, one of our members has not been here, but in effect has drawn his salary, or I assume drawn his salary. I would like to include in this code of conduct, if we’re going to call it that, that if a member misses a meeting and is unexcused, that he would lose one-third of his month’s salary. If he misses two meetings during a month, he would lose two-thirds of his salary,” Mercer said.

If a member’s absence were excused, then he or she would not lose any salary for missing a meeting, Mercer said.

“I understand there are occasions when your family business or your family has issues that cause you not to be here. You can call and tell us why you are not here, and we can excuse that meeting or not excuse that meeting,” Mercer said. “But when you don’t call and say squat, to me that is an unexcused meeting or unexcused absence.”

Mayor Archie Jennings said the issue along with other issues related to council members’ conduct is leading the council toward developing a “best practices” policy or modifying the city’s code of conduct for its elected officials.

At the same meeting, the council also discussed possible limitations on city allocations for professional development of council members and the mayor. The suggested limit was $500 per year per council member.

“If you’d just give the city attorney and I some leeway to look at that,” City Manager Brian Alligood said.

“That’s why I was trying to frame it so that we didn’t get specific around the one-third. We’re just broaching the subject here,” Jennings said.

Mercer’s motion for staff to prepare a code of conduct for council members, which includes the $500 limit per council member a year for professional development and a reduction in pay for unexcused absences from council meetings, was approved by a 4-0 vote. Councilman Ed Moultrie did not attend the meeting.