The Union of Municipalities (ZOCG) has submitted to the Parliament an amendment to the Bill on Amendments to the Law on Salaries of Public Sector Employees, in order to correct the provision of the current legal text that prescribes coefficients for calculating the salaries of mayors and presidents of municipalities, which has already been challenged before the Constitutional Court.
According to the disputed provision, the statement recalls, the coefficients for the salary of mayors and municipal presidents are prescribed in the range of 15,56 to 21,62, depending on the number of residents in the local government.
The Union of Municipalities believes that the solution that establishes different salaries depending on the number of residents, with identical jobs, powers and responsibilities in the most important positions in the municipality, represents a "gross violation" of the constitutional principle of equality and equality of citizens before the Constitution and the law.
"We note that the mayor is a unique executive body that has the same competencies in every municipality regardless of the number of inhabitants, as well as personalized criminal, misdemeanor, material and any other responsibility for performing the function. Therefore, the disputed coefficient for calculating his salary is not only unconstitutional, but also extremely unobjective. This is because the coefficient of the mayor of a municipality with up to 10.000 inhabitants is equal to the coefficient of a member of the Disciplinary Commission or the deputy head of the Prime Minister's Cabinet, and the coefficient of the mayor of a municipality with 10.000 to 50.000 inhabitants (17,29) is equal to the coefficient of an assistant professor at a university, with the note that this coefficient is significantly lower than the coefficient of a specialist doctor or the secretary of the SEC. Also, his coefficient in a municipality with over 100.000 inhabitants is equal to the coefficient of a scientific advisor or the president of the Administrative Court. This group also includes the coefficient of the mayor of the capital, which makes up a third of Montenegro," the explanation of the amendment reads.
The proposal of the Union of Municipalities is to introduce a single coefficient for calculating the salaries of mayors/presidents of municipalities, regardless of the number of inhabitants, at the same level as the coefficients for calculating the salaries of ministers and MPs.
"This is because the mayor proposes and implements local policy in a large number of different administrative areas within the municipality's jurisdiction, while the minister performs similar tasks within a limited number of his or her departments. From this it can be concluded that the mayor has a greater scope of diverse competencies compared to the minister, and equalizing their coefficients is justified," they add in the explanation.
Since, as they point out, the current law does not establish the coefficients of other local officials and senior management personnel, but rather determines them based on instructions from the Ministry of Finance, "this amendment proposes appropriate coefficients, which creates legal certainty, as it excludes the application of different instructions and opinions."
The amendment also contains a provision according to which the competent local government body that is unable to provide sufficient funds to pay salaries in accordance with the law may reduce coefficients by up to 20 percent.
The bill is on the agenda of the Parliament session scheduled for February 2, and in a letter sent by ZOCG Secretary General Mišela Manojlović to Parliament Speaker Andrija Mandić, the expectation is expressed that MPs "recognize the importance of this issue" and, in accordance with their competences, propose the amendment that was submitted to them.
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