Members of the District of Columbia Council are the second-highest paid municipal lawmakers in the country, according to an illuminating new report by the Pew Charitable Trust. Chairman Kwame Brown makes $190,000 — just $10,000 less than Mayor Vincent Gray — while his fellow council members are paid $125,583 for a part-time job with two months off in the summer. Most Council members also maintain lucrative outside jobs, insulating them from the daily financial travails faced by their constituents. At-large Council member David Catania tried to justify the excessive six-figure salaries on grounds that the Council has to perform the functions of a city, county and state. He argues that unlike municipal lawmakers in much bigger cities like New York and Chicago, D.C. Council members are responsible for state functions such as prisons, mental health facilities and utility regulation because of the unique nature of the District of Columbia. That may be true, but the U.S. attorney here is also in charge of prosecuting local homicides, and the multitude of federal law enforcement agencies in the nation’s capital provide a higher level of security than the city would otherwise enjoy. And being the nation’s capital means the city government benefits from a tourism industry that supplies a never-ending flow of visitors with money to spend. Considering that D.C. is just 68 square miles with a resident population of 601,723 — compared to New York, the most densely populated city in the United States, with 8.4 million people living in 305 square miles — D.C. Council members should be making less than their Big Apple counterparts, not more. Pew reports that they also have more staff to assist them, spending $429,000 ($19 million total) on 198 employees — more staff per capita than in all other major cities in the United States. Council committee chairmen also get to spend an additional $400,000 on staff salaries. The City Paper reported that the highest paid Council employee, Jack Evans’ chief of staff, hauls in a whopping $132,000 a year.
Other big city councils have been forced by economic necessity to reduce their spending, but the D.C. Council’s budget has increased 11 percent since 2008 — the highest percentage of any city in the Pew study. Council members accustomed to spending a lot on themselves, their staffs and a bloated bureaucracy are now considering higher taxes to keep the party going. The Council should tighten its own bloated belt before it asks taxpayers to pay more for the privilege of living here.
