PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Should the School Committee be paid more? This conversation will pick up soon.

On Tuesday, the City Council unanimously voted to send a request from Ward 1 Councilor Kenneth Warren and Ward 4 Councilor James Conant to the Personnel Review Board.

In February, the Ordinance & Rules subcommittee recommended not to approve the request and referred it to the Charter Review Committee, which determined it should be addressed through an ordinance.

"The School Committee had never been paid until 2015. This is now 10 years later. We're having a charter review as a result of a petition of mine. Their pay needs to be adjusted before July of this year, or it can't be done for another two years. It's the right thing to do," Warren said after motioning to refer to the review board.

"Even if we double it, the School Committee pay, for six of them, it will only be $25,000."

He said the city would get what it pays for and cited the committee's hard work over the past year, which involved a difficult budget and allegations against Pittsfield Public Schools staff.

"There's a lot that's on their plate," he said. "Frankly, they do probably as much, sometimes maybe even more than we do, and they don't even get half of what we do."

School Committee members are paid $4,000 annually, city councilors $8,000, and the council president makes $10,000. The council's last raise occurred in 1994.

Warren said the last election barely saw six School Committee candidates, and he would be surprised to see six people run this year. He explained that a pay change has to be done by ordinance and pointed out that when the Personnel Review Board handled the mayor's increase, it researched other Massachusetts communities to come up with a fair pay.