Chisinau mayor cuts municipal managers' salaries

A mayoral ordinance will be issued soon to cut the salaries of the managers at the municipal enterprises by 30 percent, Chisinau Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca announced at Monday's ordinary City Hall meeting, Info-Prim Neo reports. “This ordinance won't affect the technical personnel and other ordinary employees, but only the heads of subunits and divisions, who are currently receiving salaries bigger than the deputy mayors and even the mayor”, explained Chirtoaca. He added that the managers involved would be given the same salaries as the City Hall's functionaries. The salary of a typical City Hall employee ranges from 900 to 2,000 lei, while the deputy mayors and the mayor get 4,000 to 5,000 lei a month, which is by up to three times less than what a manager gets. Anatolie Gorbunov, the general director of the company Edilitate, which is 63 percent owned by the Chisinau City Council, has a salary of 8,000 lei. “We'll examine the the mayoral ordinance, but the final say belongs to the company's board, which includes among others two municipal councilors”, Gorbunov told Info-Prim Neo. “We've already made significant changes in our operations in connection with the drop in the demand (the company repairs roads – editor's note). The working week has been cut to 4 days and, obviously, it affected salaries”, added Gorbunov. Ion Stratulat, the head of the Central Market, who receives 4,600 lei a month, said he would obey the ordinance.