The wheels now are in place for Montgomery County Council members to eventually be able to get raises.
Residents on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed two county ballot initiatives, including one to classify council members as full-time employees, which officials said is purely for monetary reasons.
“It creates a context in which the compensation commission, if they chose to look at pay for the council members, can have something to go on,” Michael Faden, a legislative analyst for the council, said Wednesday.
The passage of the measure does not prohibit members of the county’s governing body from holding outside employment, a concern leveled when the rule change was opposed during the summer.
Rather, the motivation is to reflect the actual work hours involved in the job and then pay elected members accordingly.
During Tuesday’s election, about 68 percent of ballot casters in Montgomery County said yes to the charter amendment, with 32 percent voting against it.
But, according to Faden, any ensuing raises that might arise would be years down the line. The compensation commission is created at the end of the council’s third year. Then, the commission would spend that year analyzing pay amounts and make recommendations at the end of the council’s fourth year.
The other ballot initiative that passed Tuesday clarifies the time frame the county executive has to consider legislation from the council.
According to Faden, the ballot measure specifies that the executive’s 10-day period begins as soon as the time the council actually delivers the item and ends exactly 10 days later, meaning if he plans to vote down a proposal he must return it by day 11.
“This is not the kind of thing the average citizen would even notice,” he said. “Before the language was a bit ambiguous, so this makes it clearer.
Part of the Washington DC Examiner’s 2006 election coverage
