During the meeting on Wednesday, the 25th of January, Riga City Council passed amendments to wages paid in the city council, increasing the pay for officials elected to the municipal administration. This change will see Riga City Council chairman Mārtiņš Staķis’ increase 1.7 times this year.
The current wage of the chairman of Riga City Council is EUR 3 851. Amendments to the Law on Remuneration of Officials and Employees of State and Local Government Authorities will increase it to EUR 6 415.
Riga mayor’s wage may be even larger, because regulations require a coefficient to be applied to the base monthly wage amount. The base monthly wage for 2023 is set at EUR 1 137.46. The maximum coefficient used to calculate the wage of Riga City Council chairman is set at 6, but the city council intends to use the coefficient of 5.64.
Wages of three vice-mayors will increase by 1.6 times – from EUR 3 386 to EUR 5 346 a month. Wages of heads of committees will increase from EUR 2 698 to EUR 3 469. Wages of vice-chairmen of committees will increase from EUR 2 010 to EUR 2 559. Wages of deputies of Riga City Council are planned to be increased by more than EUR 600 – from EUR 1 270 to EUR 1 934 a month.
The overall effect of the wage increase on the municipal budget will be EUR 659 000. According to Staķis, there is a wage hierarchy. He mentioned that the wage of the chairman of Riga City Council is lower than the minister’s wage. He also stressed the planned increase of wages of officials is planned lower than it could have been. The situation in Latvia was taken into account, as the wage in Riga cannot be lower than wages paid to other heads of municipalities.
Former coalition partners from the political party For Latvia’s Development objected to the plan to increase wages. Former head of Riga City Council Education, Culture and Sports Committee Iveta Ratinīka said in a time when
wages of principals of schools in Riga is around EUR 1 500,
wages of 16 deputy chairmen of Riga City Council’s committees are increased unjustifiably.
According to her, the only identifiable duty of deputy heads of committees is replacing the heads of committees during their absence. She added that when she was in charge of the committee, she was replaced by her vice-chairman only three times, and this was during a period of incapacity. She did previously suggest terminating vice-chairman posts entirely or reducing their numbers.
Honour to Serve Riga member Juris Radzevičs opposed the plan to increase wages as well, but he mentioned that previously income of the chairman of the city council was previously higher thanks to posts held outside the city council.
As a result of the remuneration reform passed in 2021, the state budget project of 2023, which will need to be reviewed by the new Saeima, states that it will be necessary to divert approximately EUR 3 million towards the increase of wages of state officials, as reported by LTV programme De Facto.
Also read: Riga City Council expects EUR 140 million more in budget revenue than last year