It might be time for all of us to ask for a raise.
Only in Washington, D.C. does the Chief of Staff for the D.C. Mayor make more than the Chief of Staff for the President of the United States.
Let’s look at that again (in Twitter format):
DC Mayor COS $$ > WH COS $$
Washington Post’s Nikita Stewart: Gray hires more senior staffers than Fenty did, and is paying them significantly more
Mayor Vincent C. Gray has hired more senior staffers than his predecessor and is paying his top managers tens of thousands more a year amid city employee furloughs and looming budget cuts.
Gray’s chief of staff, Gerri Mason Hall, received a 25 percent salary increase to $200,000 a year, putting her over a $193,125 cap for her job category; Linda Wharton-Boyd, his communications director, is getting $160,000 – $40,000 more than her predecessor. Budget director Eric Goulet, who has the added title of deputy chief of staff, has a salary of $152,240 – about $27,000 more than his predecessor. In addition, several other employees now earn five figures more than the people who held the positions before them.
Related: (Yes, this is dated, but the salaries remain the same)
FishbowlDC: How Much Does Gibbs Make Compared to You?
The White House posted a 29-page list of its employees’ salaries late yesterday…
WH press secretary Robert Gibbs, communications director Anita Dunn and director of speechwriting Jon Favreau all cap out at $172,200. WH deputy press secretary Bill Burton still does well, but doesn’t quite make the David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel $172,200 salary.
Is working in the DC Mayor’s office the best gig in politics?
Perhaps not:
Miami Herald: Rep. Rivera’s fundraising consultant collected $817,000 in fees since 2006
Before launching his bid for Congress last year, David Rivera embarked on a record-breaking campaign for the state Senate, amassing more than $1 million in donations some eight months before Election Day.
Rivera paid $250,000 of that money to his fundraiser and longtime ally, Esther Nuhfer — including $150,000 in “bonus” money, records show — all for a political campaign that Rivera never finished.
But if Miami has us beat in salaries, the District makes it up in Lincoln Navigators.
Yes, if elected in DC, you can send back a fully-equipped SUV if you don’t like the color of interior.
Washington City Paper’s Alan Suderman: A Close Read of Kwame Brown’s SUV Lease Deal
When LL first broke the news in January that the city is paying nearly $2,000 a month for Council Chairman Kwame “Fully Loaded” Brown‘s Lincoln Navigator, his office said Brown was “appalled” at the high cost and was looking into whether the District could get out of the contract in an affordable way.
Now that the Washington Post has a Sunday front-pager expanding on the story—with some unflattering e-mails showing Brown has put the city on the hook for an extra Navigator because he didn’t like the gray interior he was offered at first—Brown appears to be really looking into getting out of the lease.