Analytics, Financial Services, Legislation, Lithuania, Wages

Wages of mayors of cities with population over 100,000 will be calculated applying a coefficient of 15 to 20 instead of 12.2. Kaunas City Municipality Council approved that a coefficient of 19 will be used when calculating the mayor's wage.

As a result, Kaunas Mayor Visvaldas Matijosaitis' gross salary is EUR 2.480. According to Matijosaitis, he did not choose to be the mayor because of the salary, thus this matter was not relevant to him. "However, taking into account the responsibility and workload of a mayor of a city this size, the wage should be much higher. The same goes for deputy mayors and heads of the administration," said Matijosaitis.

The director of Kaunas City Municipality Administration will receive a gross salary of EUR 1.409 while his deputies of EUR 1.266. However, the leadership of the administration was also granted premiums amounting to 60 percent of wages. Some councillors were angered that maximum possible premiums were established to deputy directors of the administration. Nevertheless, the mayor said that "even with premiums wages are too low taking into consideration the situation in the labour market". The mayor added that "in order to hire highly-skilled professionals an adequate wage has to be paid."