Few places are busier these days than the hearing rooms at City Hall, as City Council committees consider legislation and examine Mayor Bloomberg’s $52.2 billion proposed budget.

For some committees, the hearing room is terra incognita – several are convening for the first time in months. The Juvenile Justice Committee and the senior centers subcommittee have not held hearings in nearly a year, and before convening an organizational meeting last month, the Civil Rights Committee had not met publicly in about two years.

To critics of the council, the inactivity is a function of a flawed system in which committees are created and chairmanships are doled out not on the basis of merit or need, but as a way for the speaker to reward loyalty and support. The speaker of the council, Christine Quinn, bumped up the juvenile justice and civil rights subcommittees to full committees this year, giving their leaders a raise.

On top of a base salary of $90,000 a year, chairmen of standing committees receive stipends of at least $10,000. Heads of subcommittees and select committees get at least $4,000.

The stipends, or “lulus” in council parlance, do not go to a select few: Of the council’s 51 members, 43 head a committee and another three take in bonuses for holding leadership positions. As the executive director of the watchdog group Citizens Union, Richard Dadey, noted: “The City Council has more standing committees than the United States House of Representatives.”

Some council members who lead smaller committees say that, far from being irrelevant, the panels are an important function of the council’s oversight responsibility. Subcommittees on issues like drug abuse and senior centers, they argue, allow the council to shine a light on topics that may not gain attention under umbrella panels on mental health and the aging.

The chairman of the Civil Rights Committee, Council Member Larry Seabrook of the Bronx, said he could not recall the last time the committee had held a hearing. But he defended the speaker’s decision to upgrade the panel this year, saying that a full standing committee would have increased oversight jurisdiction with city agencies like the Human Rights Commission and the Equal Employment Practices Commission. The committee has held hearings each of the last two months, and Mr. Seabrook said he looks forward to tackling several issues, particularly what he termed “the most segregated school system in America.”

The council’s committee system may come under increased scrutiny when a working group on rules changes meets for the first time this week. After announcing initial changes to council procedure shortly after taking office, Ms. Quinn appointed a separate committee to recommend further reforms. An agenda for the group has not been set, its co-chairmen, council members David Yassky and Daniel Garodnick, said.

The working group and the initial rules changes came amid pressure for council reform from good government groups and some council members. In a report issued late last year, the Citizens Union suggested reducing the number of committees as well changing or eliminating stipends for committee chairmen.

In many cases, Mr. Dadey said, leadership and committee appointments were used simply to provide stipends. “There were a number of committees that rarely met, but the committee chairs still receive a stipend, regardless of how they performed,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the speaker, Maria Alvarado, could not say whether Ms. Quinn supported a change in the committee system. Responding to a questionnaire published in the Citizens Union report before her election as speaker, Ms. Quinn indicated she did not support either the consolidation of committees or the elimination of stipends. The leaders of the working group, Messrs. Yassky and Garodnick, responded in support of the changes.

One council member has already taken the matter upon himself. Anthony Avella, a Democrat of Queens, has refused to accept his $8,000 stipend for heading the subcommittee on zoning and franchises. “I think the lulus are an anti-good-government practice and should be done away,” Mr. Avella said, adding that the stipends foster a carrot and stick system that serves to “keep members in line.”

Mr. Avella is especially critical of the Land Use Committee, which encompasses three subcommittees. The committee, one of the council’s largest, typically meets for about 15 minutes to rubberstamp the recommendation of a subcommittee, Mr. Avella said. “To me, the whole thing is a joke, because the subcommittees do all the work,” he said. “Why do we need a Land Use Committee?”

As new and upgraded committees hold their first meetings of the legislative session, panel leaders say they have no intention of sitting on their stipends. “It needs to be a working committee. It needs to be a functioning committee,” the chairwoman of the new subcommittee on drug abuse, Council Member Annabel Palma, said she told Ms. Quinn before accepting her appointment. “If that was not the plan, then I would gladly surrender the chairmanship.”

Ms. Quinn plans to keep a close eye on her 43 committees, Ms. Alvarado said. The speaker, she said, will monitor the committees to ensure they are meeting regularly, as mandated by council rules. The rules require that most standing committees meet monthly and that subcommittees and select committees meet “as needed to complete their work.”