Salaries of public managers, how the ceiling works

With a corrective inserted in extremis into the Aid bis decree, some parliamentarians managed to get the Senate to approve the removal of the cap on the salaries of public officials, set in 2014 at 240 thousand euros a year. All with the consent of the Ministry of Economy but without the knowledge of Palazzo Chigi, which has already promised to present an amendment for discussion in the Chamber in order to suppress the article in question, namely number 41 of the decree.

Because the limit was introduced

The limit on the salaries of public managers was introduced for the first time at the end of 2011, with the Save-Italy decree (Legislative Decree 201 of 2011, article 23-ter) of the government of Mario Monti, then struggling with the risk of default of the Village. It was later in 2014 at the beginning of Matteo Renzi’s governmenteven if the previous governments of Romano Prodi, Silvio Berlusconi and even Enrico Letta had already tried.

The goal was to avoid that any public official could receive a higher salary than the President of the Republic, which in 2014 received an annual allowance of 239,181 euros, before taxes. Before the limit, according to data referring to 2012 published by the Ministry of Economy, the then CEO of Poste Italiane, Massimo Sarmi, received a paycheck of 2.2 million gross, including 638,746 euros pertaining to 2011 and disbursed in 2012. While the then president of Poste, Giovanni Ialongo, received 903,611 euros in 2012. The same goes for Mauro Moretti, then CEO of the State Railways, who rose up against the limit, earning 873,666 euros gross in 2012.

Because it was suspended

It is not yet clear how the amendment managed to pass within the Aid decree, but in recent years the ceiling has come into question, criticized above all because it would limit the state’s ability to attract high-level managers to public companieswhich would favor higher-paid private positions.

The amendment, however, in addition to not setting any new limit, it would raise the salaries only to a very select group of senior executives in the public administration, but not at all. Only the chief of police, the general commanders of the Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza, the head of the penitentiary administration, the chiefs of defense and armed forces, the commander of the joint top operational command, and the general commander are included in the measure. of the Port Authorities. But, above all, alongside them they would get the exemption all heads of department and general secretaries of the presidency of the Council and ministries.