The limit of 240 thousand euros on the payslips of the heads of the Public Administration and on the remuneration of super consultants will no longer be set in stone. From next year it may be revised upwards, in line with the increases determined by the contractual renewals to the salaries of public employees.
This sort of luxury adjustment is provided for by a rule that had been buzzing for over two months around the maneuver and the various end-of-year decrees, and which managed to rise in extremis in the maxi-amendment to the budget law (paragraph 68) approved by Senate on the night of Christmas Eve and now being examined by the House for what can only be a final ratification. Istat will fix the percentage of the increases, in the final movement of a chain mechanism: the percentage indicated by the Institute of Statistics is that of the annual adjustments of the salaries recognized to the managers of the Police and Armed Forces and to university teachers, and depends on in turn by the «average increases achieved in the previous year by the categories of public employees under contract». The 2019/21 session under discussion now at Aran, where the final signing of the agreement for ministries, tax agencies and non-economic public bodies is expected to take place after last Tuesday’s pre-agreement, provides for an increase in the table by 3, 78%. A dry transposition of this percentage on the maximum limit of public remuneration would move the ceiling to 249 thousand euros. Not right away, though. Because the effect of the contractual renewals will arrive in the employees’ payslips in 2022, and will therefore be reflected in the adjustment of the limit for 2023, in a calculation that will look at the actual increases, also taking into account the (small) quota already paid in recent years in the form of a contractual holiday allowance.
In short, the effects of the law look far ahead. After all, the paragraph is not the invention of a moment. The text had already entered the first drafts of the budget law (it occupied paragraph 4 of article 153), from which it was then removed to avoid controversy. After that the rule was left unresolved exploring different avenues before finding the right one, nocturnal and Christmas.
The rule concerns first of all those who occupy the top boxes of the large ministries, the judiciary and the independent authorities. On the other hand, it excludes the bulk of senior executives, who generally stop below the maximum limit set by law.
The novelty, which will result in a sort of automatic adjustment, promises to arouse controversy without changing the structure of the rules that govern public salaries, and without changing the crushing effect that by virtue of the general limit leads to proposing equal salaries for roles characterized by very different commitment and responsibility. But to tackle this problem, which has long been at the center of discussions among insiders, a real reform would be needed. And maybe discussed in Parliament. Not a comma resurrected in one night.