Everett’s mayor was improperly paid $180,000 for a “longevity bonus” and may have violated state ethics laws, according to the results of an investigation released today by the Massachusetts inspector general.

The investigation, which began in 2022 after a tip to the inspector general’s hotline, also found that Mayor Carlo DeMaria concealed those payments from Everett City Council members and the public.

The idea of the bonus — payments to the mayor for each completed term — was proposed by the mayor himself, the report said, because he participated in the drafting and approval of the ordinance that provided him with the payments.

“The OIG found that Mayor DeMaria used his position to unjustly enrich himself by orchestrating a city ordinance that provided him with a considerable bonus,” the report says.

In 2016, Everett City Council approved a $10,000 bonus for each four-year term served by the mayor, but the amount paid was vastly different, said Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro. After an initial payment in 2017 in line with the council’s ordinance, he said, the city began paying the mayor a $40,000 bonus each year.

The annual overpayments were made from 2018 to 2021, when the report says it was brought to the attention of the city council and the annual payment was reduced to $1,700 a year, consistent with longevity payments made to other city employees.

Shapiro said the mayor and his administration intentionally hid the overpayments from the city council and the public by being moved from a clearly itemized “longevity payment” in the mayor’s budget to a generic human resources category.

“We do believe that it was done to disguise it. … The administration was paying $40,000 a year versus what the council understood it to be, which would have been $10,000 every four years,” Shapiro told GBH News.

The report recommends the city recover $180,000 from the mayor and that they audit all payments made to the mayor from 2016 to the present to search for other overpayments. It will be up to the State Ethics Commission to determine whether conflict of interest laws were violated.

City Councilor Stephanie Martins, who is also the council president, is calling on Mayor DeMaria to resign.

“There is a clear intent to misappropriate the funds. And I think the right thing to do is to step down,” Martins told GBH News.

Martins said when she began serving in 2020 she had “no idea” that the mayor received a longevity payment because it was “hidden” in an obscure human resources budget line. She said that made it “impossible” to know about.

Martins said the city council plans to work with the inspector general’s office on how to implement his recommendations.

DeMaria’s sixth term as mayor ends in November.

The mayor did not respond to request for comment.