Just How Much is Mayor Healy’s Pay Cut, Anyway?
By Jon Whiten • Oct 2nd, 2009 • Category: Blog, News, Politics
In a story this week on the mandatory furloughs being imposed on city workers, the Journal reported that “Mayor Jerramiah Healy will take a voluntary pay cut,” but didn’t offer any more details on what that meant. So here’s the skinny, for all that might be interested.
Healy isn’t taking a permanent cut, but to show solidarity with the city workers, he is taking the same percentage cut that the furloughed employees will have to take for working 12 fewer days. For his salary of $117,782, that would amount to $5,415.24, bringing the total salary down to $112,366.76.
Healy’s spokesperson Jennifer Morrill points out that Healy has also frozen his salary for the past two years. The mayor, like all department directors and statutory employees, is entitled to a 3.5 percent cost-of-living increase each year, as governed by city ordinance. Healy didn’t take it last year, and this year he froze the increase for everyone.
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Jon Whiten is the editor and co-publisher of the Jersey City Independent and NEW magazine.
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What a bum.
All this tough talk about taking a pay cut, and at that price point $5k is chump change. For all his grand standing, he should be slashed to below $100k.