Does the City Council deserve a pay increase? (Atlanta: how much, home)

[GeorgiaLakeSearch]

Atlanta City Council votes for 50 percent pay increase | www.ajc.com

[lorilove]

Definitely not 20% in one year and 300% over a 12 year period.

[DONNIEANDDONNA417]

hell no but georgia is a republican state so what do you expect

[GeorgiaLakeSearch]

Originally Posted by DONNIEANDDONNA417

hell no but georgia is a republican state so what do you expect

You do realize the city is majority Democrat?

[WestsideATLCindy]

Food for thought: My council person works nights and weekends all the time, and weekdays of course. She takes calls constantly, gets emails constantly. People are always complaining constantly and asking for things constantly. She has to be nice/cooperative with people who are angry, rude, and crazy every day. I have seen her get yelled at time and again by the nutcases that show up at neighborhood meetings. If any of you go to neighborhood meetings and NPU meetings etc then you know there are always the crazy people that yell about everything. And she has to do a lot of work that covers a lot of different areas of expertise. Even without the nutty whiners, her job is very demanding and open-ended.

At least in my District, my council member is doing a great job, works more hours than most people I know, and has to do a job that I am certain 99% of the rest of us could NOT do as well as she does. I say she deserves a LOT MORE than what she will get if they get this pay raise. I hope they get it, and I hope it attracts more quality people like her to the job...from what I see, quite a lot of these council members who get voted in for decades have done nothing good for their constituents.

Part of the reason more "good hard working people" who could do good for the City do not run for these positions is because the pay is lousy. It is the main reason why I never even considered it...because I KNOW that to REALLY do a good job as a council person, I would not be able to work another full time job, I would not have time. So, my council salary would have to cover all of my expenses, and I could barely even afford my basic bills on what they make now, and I own a very modest 2 bedroom 1 bath home and drive a modest 6 year old car. If salaries get up there to 60K, more people who could do a lot of good for this City would run for office, and we would get way, way, way more than our money's worth out of that. Right now some of those people are a total waste of our money. Higher salaries would get some quality people to run against these decades long benchwarmers who actually harm their districts.

As for the city employees...with the exception of the police and fire, what I see when I go Downtown and what I see when they are "working" in the community is that they do no deserve a raise. They need to fire about half of them, and get the remaining half to do what they are supposed to do, and at that point three times the job would be getting done as what is getting done now.

[Mishap]

I find myself little torn about it. Sure a 50% raise sounds like a lot but they're being paid like 40k right now. If it's a PT job, that's pretty sweet but if it's your only source of income, it's a pretty cruddy job especially when you factor the costs of getting into office. I would think most people treat it as a stepping stone to bigger political offices but a lot of those folks this is the most they'll ever achieve. Obviously in tight fiscal times, you want to minimize cost increases and share the burden of belt tightening so the way they went about it certainly seems very tone deaf.

Money shouldn't be the sole driver of taking political office but power has always had corrosive effects. There are generally far easier ways to get paid a lot more but I'm guessing most people that have ambitions for office are more attracted to power than pure financial gain. The avg manager in my firm makes more than Kaseem Reed and no one is going to give any of them that level of executive power. Paying politicians next to nothing of course invites those who seek to enrich themselves in other ways. See Gwinnett County for a case study in how secondary costs (overpaying for land, lawsuits, etc) can strip away anything penny pinching saved you up front. That said, there's little rhyme or reason in politician pay other than how much they think they can get away with.

[midtown mile girl]

It's hard to just justify when the streets look like a bomb has pockmarked them. The neighboorhood streets are awful-including those in places like ansley park.

[jsvh]

Yes, They should be paid enough to not need to work a second job.

However, the system is flawed. They should not be in charge of setting their own salaries. Maybe lock it to Atlanta's average income.

[tikigod311]

Is walmart and fuqua not already taking care of these guys?

[DONNIEANDDONNA417]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaLakeSearch

You do realize the city is majority Democrat?

Well Romney won the state of georgia so doesnt that mean it is majority republican?