The 11 percent solution

continued

office).

Look closer, though, and the gap looks more like a crevice. It turns out the county bills the commission $143,000 a year—$13,000 per commissioner—for office space, human resources, information technology, and other support services. The city accounts for those types of expenses in its general budget.

The officials’ pay is almost identical—county commissioners earn $16,126 a year, city council members $15,914. But commissioners get some per-diem pay that council members don’t. And—this is the real perk—commissioners also get an average of $5,832 annually in medical, dental, liability and other insurance. Council members get no insurance at all.   

[Originally published in July, 2009.]