The freshly sworn-in members of the Boston City Council started the year off by getting a pay raise right out of the gate.

Must be nice.

The raise has been in the pipeline for two years, when the council voted for a heftier boost. Mayor Michelle Wu vetoed it, and the council came back with a slightly downsized pay hike.

This year, councilors will get $115,000 (up from $103,500) and an additional $5,000 next year and another $5,000 in 2026.

The question is: Do they deserve it?

In most private-sector companies, pay raises are linked to performance reviews: turn in a stellar year, and you are rewarded. But with the state of dysfunction so robustly displayed by the council over the last year, what are they being rewarded for? And if raises are not, in large part, based on merit, they should be.

One could make the argument that elections are the ultimate performance review, but with historically low turnouts for city council elections, that point is weak.

Not so for members of Congress. Members make $174,000 a year, the same as they did in 2009.  The Government Ethics Reform Act of 1989 allows for an automatic cost of living adjustment increase, but Congress has said no to the pay bump for over a decade.

Not that it hasn’t come up for debate, as it did earlier this year.

House Legislative Branch Appropriations Chairman Mark Amodei, R-Nev., said he thought after such a long time without an increase, allowing members to receive the cost-of-living adjustment would be good policy, as RollCall reported.

“The policy supports, hey, once every twelve years, you can have a cost -of-living increase,” Amodei said. “That’s not exactly greedy. But the politics is — you know how that will go.”

Amodei said that some members are worried about the optics of giving themselves a raise, which could be used against them in their reelection campaigns.

“Having been around a few campaigns in my life, do you think that campaign consultants, who are ‘geniuses’, do you think they will be able to tee that one up?” Amodei said. “You know, Bob Smith voted for an $8,000 raise while he cut your blah blah benefits.”

Or in Boston terms, “Bob Smith voted for a pay raise but said no to a $13M federal anti-terrorism grant.”

Members of the city council should be subject to performance reviews in the runup to voting on pay raises. Like grading one’s own paper, they will always give themselves an “A.”

The council should hold public hearings on pay hikes, and should have to show what they’ve done to earn them. Campaigns are built on promises, but rewards hinge on results.

Some council members do deserve the pay hike, they’ve worked hard for their constituents and struggled to keep the ship sailing straight in a sea of dysfunction. Others, well, you’ve read the Herald headlines.

Mayor Wu, of course, should have a hand in reviewing the council’s work, and determining if a raise is fitting. As it stands now, within the span of two years, council pay gets a $10,000 boost.

A city leadership touts accountability, the council should put their compensation front and center. Before the next scheduled pay increase vote, councilors must prove that they’re deserving.

Give them a run for the money.

Editorial cartoon by Chip Bok (Creators Syndicate)