Austerity will be the watchword for the incoming mayors of Guadalajara and Zapopan, who take charge of their municipal governments on October 1, along with 123 other presidentes municipales in Jalisco.
Guadalajara’s Enrique Alfaro and Zapopan’s Pablo Lemus, both of the fledgling Citizens Movement (MC), have agreed to lower their salaries in a show of solidarity with their constituents facing economic hard times.
The high salaries of officials is “unfair at times of crisis when families have to tighten their belts,” Lemus said this week.
Lemus will reduce his pre-tax wage by 28 percent from the whopping 133,469 a month earned by his predecessor, Hector Robles of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), to 96,045 pesos.
Alfaro will earn the same as Lemus, lowering his salary by 15 percent.
Savings from the salary adjustments for the two mayors are calculated at around eight million pesos a year.
Several news sources, however, have pointed out that Alfaro and Lemus will still be earning more than the governors of eight Mexican states.
The MC mayors of Tlajomulco and Tlaquepaque will remain on existing monthly salaries of 61,681 and 40,790 pesos respectively.
Additionally, Alfaro has promised zero tolerance as he outlaws any kind of trivial or unnecessary expense in his administration. All senior officials, including himself, will be obliged to use their own vehicles and pay for gasoline from their paychecks. Complimentary cell phones and lunches will be scrapped. Even seeming trivialities such as using envelopes to send out invitations to ceremonies will be banned, Alfaro stressed.
Alfaro expects to save around 320 million pesos with his austerity measures.
All of MC’s Guadalajara city councilors – as well as other employees earning more than 40,000 pesos a month – will be obliged to take home a wage that is 15 percent less than the stipulated amount.
Alfaro has vowed not to delve into municipal coffers to stage a populist inaugural ceremony when he takes office on October 1, saying an austere “republican act” will suffice. “If we want to have a political event with our own people in the streets, we will pay for it with our own money,” he said.
The incoming mayor has also promised to “significantly” reduce the number of people employed by the Guadalajara municipality, currently around 10,000, by the end of his administration.
Alfaro said he owes no one any political favors and will govern with “decisiveness.” He has already promised to increase the cost of municipal licenses by ten percent but pledged to relocate ambulant vendors who clog the city center and test the patience of established business owners.