Lia Olguța Vasilescu criticizes the new salary law: “It does not suit me to increase salaries in Craiova City Hall by more than 2 million euros”
Lia Olguța Vasilescu, the mayor of Craiova, requested the “correction” of several aspects of the salary bill. “The salaries of employees in the local public administration are increasing a lot, despite the fact that we did not want this,” she said on Wednesday, after the discussions held, as president of the Association of Municipalities, with the interim Minister of Labour.
“It does not suit me, as mayor, to increase salaries in Craiova City Hall by more than 2 million euros, given that until now we have been told that we have to tighten the belt”, said Lia Olguța Vasilescu in some press statements.
She specified that she asked Minister Dragoș Pîslaru “to reintroduce the brakes on the salary in the local public administration”.
“To be more precise, until now, through the past law, through the salary law, it was not possible for an official from a town hall, for example, or from a county council to exceed the salary of the vice-mayor or the vice-president of the county council. This worked very well, because no matter how long the increases went, let's say, there was this brake”, explained the mayor of Craiova.
The social democrat said that the new project provides for the elimination of this brake.
“Well, now, on the new version, this brake disappears, given that, if, for example, the increase for European funds for mayors decreases and increases for employees, we will find ourselves again in the situation we had in 2017, that over half of the employees in a town hall had a salary income higher than that of the mayor, or this is exactly what was tried to be corrected by the salary law, as it was done in 2017”, he added Vasilescu.
“It is clear that there is an irregularity in this law”
Lia Olguța Vasilescu believes that “it is clear that there is an irregularity in this wage law”, which she requested to be corrected.
“According to our calculations, the salaries of employees in the local public administration are increasing a lot, despite the fact that we did not want this. I will give you the calculation I have from the City Hall of Craiova, for example, until now the payroll expenses were 53,000,400 million, now they go to 66,750,000, this means an increase of 13 million, over 2 million euros, which should be we pay extra for employees' salaries, given that the mayor's salary income decreases by 500 lei”, the president of the Association of Municipalities also declared.
