Decision to Increase Council Activity Expenses for Gurye County Council Members

Published 05 Feb.2024 13:37(KST)

Increase from 1.1 million won to 1.5 million won per month

The Gurye-gun Legislative Activity Expense Deliberation Committee announced that it has decided to increase the monthly legislative activity allowance for county council members from the current 1.1 million KRW to 1.5 million KRW.

This decision follows the revision of the Local Autonomy Act Enforcement Decree in December last year, which allows for an additional maximum of 400,000 KRW per month in legislative activity expenses.

[Photo by Gurye-gun]

On February 2, the Gurye-gun Legislative Activity Expense Deliberation Committee held a public hearing at the Gurye-gun Culture and Arts Center to gather residents' opinions on the proposed increase in legislative activity expenses.

Former Gurye-gun council member Kim Gi-ho, former Gurye-gun public official Kim Yong-jae, and Kim Gi-hong, head of the Gwangju-Jeonnam branch of the Korea Manifesto Practice Headquarters, presented their views on the increase in legislative activity expenses.

The reasons cited for the need to increase the legislative activity allowance included: ▲the allowance has been frozen for the past 20 years ▲treatment of county council members is inadequate compared to national assembly members ▲the current allowance is below the minimum wage, making satisfactory legislative activities difficult ▲appropriate compensation is necessary to attract talented individuals to the council.

Meanwhile, some opinions pointed out fundamental issues regarding the setting of legislative activity expenses, such as ▲it is undesirable for the government to set a ceiling amount when local governments should decide the payment amount themselves in the era of local autonomy ▲it is more important to grant authority to local council members, which has been skewed toward local government heads, than to focus on compensation issues.

Reflecting the opinions from the public hearing, the Gurye-gun Legislative Activity Expense Deliberation Committee finalized the original proposal to increase the legislative activity allowance from 1.1 million KRW to 1.5 million KRW per month.

Once the Gurye-gun Council receives the finalized results from the Gurye-gun Legislative Activity Expense Deliberation Committee, it plans to revise the ordinance in March and pay the increased allowance.