The pay scale for politicians from towns to the Central Government is a mess. Oh, there is system set down, but it produced idiosyncrasies.

Take the Mayor of Motril, Luisa García Chamorro, who receives, after the inevitable post-election pay rise, 72.000 euros. Well, the head of the Regional Government (the Junta) Juanma Moreno, gets 71.667 euros (It was 69,000 before the latest pay rise).

How do you smoke that, as the Spanish say?

Both the Mayor of Madrid and the Mayor of Barcelona receive more than the Prime Minister of the Spanish Government!

Let’s go back to Motril. The Town Hall spends 1,095,009 euros on political-post salaries (councillors, etc) every year. Vice-Mayors now receive 59.000 euros; that’s 30% up spent on this type of post on last year’s bill because they used to get only 40,000 euros per annum.

The Town Hall justifies this as it applies the recommended salaries approved by the Central Government for towns with over 50,000 inhabitants (Ley Presupuestos Generales del Estado).

The previous, socialist Mayor of Motril received two salaries; one from the Town Hall and one from the Mancomunidad de Municipios de la Costa Tropical. However, the said ex-Mayor, Flor Almón used to have a salary of 53,000 euros. When Mayor Chamorro took over in 2019, the salary stood at 62,000 and now stands at 72,000.

So, let’s talk about the Mancomunidad, which is a job-for-the-boys, set up, where the entity reportedly spends more on salaries than on the tasks that it should be carrying out.

So, what is a Mancomunidad? It is a political entity made up of politicians from the towns included within its area scope. It’s task is to manage the drinking-water supply and sewage disposal needs of each municipality but it has seemingly become a second, meal ticket for local politicians.

Depending on how many seats a political party gets in the municipal elections, the more representatives it can nominate for Mancomunidad posts. Consequently, at the moment, Mancomunidad has three PP seats, one PSOE seat and one Más Costa Tropical, all of which receive this second salary it seems.

But let us not lose track of the fact that municipal workers in Motril (police, fire personnel, maintenance workers, etc) have requested salaries increases for years and have been ignored yet no sooner than the elections go by Town Hall politicians award themselves handsome salary increases.

Motril is a case in point but it’s the same as just about every other municipality, regardless of which party is in the driving seat.

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)