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Comment by georgeburdell | Hacker News Reader

I’m also in the camp of paying government officials more. In my town, the mayor and council make about $30k each while the median income in the city is well over $100k and houses cost over $1M. That self-selects out the majority of qualified candidates who must work for a living.

We have several high tech companies as well as a pro sports team that perpetually influence politics to the city’s detriment, and the stooges that get put on our ballot each election are simply under-equipped to combat them.

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"Mayor" where I live is effectively a volunteer position. Raising the salary would require the village fully fund the position for the extent of a mayoral term which is too expensive.

So instead they hire a city manager who basically runs everything, at a much higher salary, which meets budget rules since they could in theory fire him if they run out of money. Hence the city manager is an unelected strong executive, which is not good for democracy.

Here in NJ, I live in a small town of around 7,000 or so. We have a Township Committee form of government, five committee people with one nominally as Mayor (but really the same as everyone else). They get a yearly stipend of around $5,000 a year or a little less.

It sounds crazy but our whole muni budget is under $5 million. We have almost no infrastructure other than roads (98% of housing is on well water and septic systems, there are no street lights or sewers or the like).

A lot of municipal government in the US is like this. Very small with near-volunteers running everything.

You are right that this rules out a lot of people who can't afford to effectively volunteer for local government. I think mostly this is a good thing.

> That self-selects out the majority of qualified candidates who must work for a living.

Occupations like "landlord" and "car dealership owner" are wildly overrepresented in local government because they have high incomes with virtually no time commitment.

These people aren't necessarily unqualified, but their motivation for holding office isn't usually aligned with the needs of the average member of the public.

This article was about members of the US congress so their salaries are $174k for your run-of-the-mill congressperson and higher for leadership roles. $174k is a very comfortable salary.

It's low for people who control trillions of dollars in yearly government spending, and who indirectly decide the fate of trillions more in private spending. $174k being "comfortable" is a misdirection: it should be, "what is the market rate to get someone who can reasonably handle trillions of dollars without corruption and for the benefit of their constituents?" And the answer is apparently higher than $174k per year, because many of these people go on to million dollar appointments in the private sector afterward.

See also, for example, Singapore, known for fairly low corruption, who pays government heads over $1M per year.

> In my town, the mayor and council make about $30k each while the median income in the city is well over $100k and houses cost over $1M.

The chief of police summons a recently enrolled policeman in his office: "The accounting called, and apparently you never picked your pay cheques in the last 6 months? What's up with that?" ― "Wait, we get paid? I thought it was, you get the badge and then gun, and then you're on your own!"

The things with jokes, however, is that they probably should not become reality.

125k people, $9,000 for the city council position in my area.

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