Baltimore County residents look for answers, solutions after White Marsh Mall disturbance<\/a><\/p>\nAn advisory board has recommended raising council salaries from the current $69,000 a year to $140,000.<\/p>\n
Critics have also focused on a bill approved last year that increases council members\u2019 pensions long after they leave office. Under that measure, retired council members would receive a pension increase each time there is a pay increase for current council members.<\/p>\n
At a council work session Monday afternoon, critics took aim. \u201cCouncil members already receive benefits significantly more generous than other county employees.\u201d one county resident said. \u201cA council member could see his adjustment jump from 41 to 80 thousand dollars. That’s not a cost of living adjustment that\u2019s a golden parachute,” another resident warned.<\/p>\n
After public outcry, council members are now considering whether to repeal the pension bill.<\/p>\n
One council member pushed back on claims about the salary recommendation, saying, \u201cThere are many folks trying to create their own narrative that this is something we\u2019ve approved. It hasn\u2019t even been presented to the council for action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nick Stewart, a candidate for county executive, accused council members of attempting to fatten their pensions while other county employees struggle. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing you pay more attention to more than your own compensation. They knew exactly what these calculations would look like because they were warned,\u201d Stewart said.<\/p>\n
Stewart also pointed to broader economic pressures in the county, saying, \u201cWe have nearly 40,000 kids in extreme poverty, teacher contracts we can\u2019t pay and pensioners who are eaten up by inflation and this is what we do? How dare we…!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(WBFF) \u2014 Baltimore County council members face renewed scrutiny over their pay and retirement benefits as an advisory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,147,530],"class_list":["post-517152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}