Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) Loudoun County’s Board of Supervisors voted 5-4 Thursday to give future members a hefty raise. Starting in 2020, the supervisors will get a whopping 62 percent pay hike.
The current salary for a board member is $41,200. In 2020 that number will jump to $66,826. The vice chair will make $73,363, and the chair will earn $81,100
After 2020 board members will get 2 percent raises for the next three years.
“It’s not necessarily a raise for the member of the board of supervisors,” said board member Matt Letourneau.
Board member Ralph Buona agreed the job has changed since 2008 but didn’t see that as justification for such a large raise since supervisors now have more resources.
“They only started staff aides at around that time. Now your budgets are big enough that some of you have four aides. They do a lot of the work for you,” he said.
Before the vote on the 62 percent raise, Buona proposed giving board members 18 percent increases instead, which is what other county employees got from 2008 to 2018. He said a 62 percent increase would send the message that the board is different than other county staff members.
Letourneau argued the board is different in many respects, including the fact that they don’t get the same benefits that other county employees receive.
The board rejected Buona’s proposed 18 percent raise and then voted to approve the 62 percent one.
Members Phyllis Randall and Ron Meyer both said the low salary was preventing people from running for office.
Meyer said increasing it would enable more people to be able to afford to run.
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