Salary rift felt in Ra'anana municipality

The report said the city's 1,919 employees grossed just NIS 6,100 each per month on average.

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
money 88 (photo credit: Courtesy)
money 88
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Ra'anana's senior municipal officials earned the third-highest local authority salaries in Israel in 2006, according to newly released figures from the Treasury Department. Ra'anana's top eight municipal employees brought home an average gross monthly salary of NIS 30,453 each, topped only by Jerusalem (NIS 31,070) and Ashdod (NIS 30,691), reports the Hebrew weekly Kol Ra'anan. But while senior officials in Ra'anana did very well for themselves, ordinary municipal employees did not fare so well. The report said the city's 1,919 employees - those remaining after deducting the top tier - grossed just NIS 6,100 each per month on average. The Hebrew weekly Yediot Hasharon contrasted this with neighboring city Herzliya, where the top officials earned a gross monthly average of NIS 27,787 each (about NIS 3,000 less than in Ra'anana) and other municipal employees earned an average of NIS 9,365 each (about NIS 3,000 more than in Ra'anana). The newspaper said the average municipal salary in Ramat Hasharon was NIS 9,244, in Hod Hasharon NIS 8,069, and in Kfar Saba NIS 7,916, leaving the impression that "it is not worth being an ordinary employee in Ra'anana." Spokesmen for both Herzliya and Ra'anana responded that municipal salaries are fixed in accordance with the law, but the Herzliya spokesman added that the city "is proud that the average salary of its employees is high and appropriate." The reports also said that Ra'anana's highest-earning municipal employee was the deputy director of administration and human resources, Tilly Colin, who grossed a massive NIS 46,824 monthly in 2006. The next highest earner was Colin's boss, city manager Uri Keidar, who grossed NIS 33,238, followed by five other senior officials who each grossed more than NIS 25,000 monthly. A municipal spokesman said Colin's salary had been boosted by retroactive payments for enrichment courses she had done over the years but had not been paid for at the time. Colin herself said her "real" salary was 80 percent that of her boss's, and usually amounted to about NIS 25,000 gross per month. Yediot Hasharon pointed out that despite the gaps in salaries between senior and ordinary municipal employees in Ra'anana, only seven Ra'anana officials grossed more than NIS 25,000 each, while in Herzliya 19 did so. Five municipal employees grossed more than NIS 25,000 in Kfar Saba, and four did so in each of Hod Hasharon and Ramat Hasharon. The highest-earning municipal employee in Herzliya was the city comptroller with a gross monthly salary of NIS 34,823, and in Ramat Hasharon was the city treasurer with NIS 31,038.