The government is reportedly planning to allow each member of provincial and metropolitan councils to employ an aide paid for by local residents.
Minister of Security and Public Administration Yoo Jeong-bok said the government would push to revise the law on local autonomy to implement the plan within this year.
Yoo justified the move by saying that “local councilors deserve better working conditions as they deal with budgets amounting to trillions of won and carry out numerous tasks directly related to the daily lives of residents.”
He added that the government would also consider allowing local councilors of basic administrative units, such as local cities, counties and districts of metropolitan cities, to hire paid aides.
Few would dispute the need to revitalize local councils as many of them are not functioning properly. But the failure of local assemblies to live up to expectations cannot be attributed to the lack of paid aides to their members.
In fact, this was the view the ministry has held until recently. When the Seoul Metropolitan Council passed a bill last year to authorize its members to hire aides paid for by the city government, the ministry referred the case to the court.
It was not just because the ordinance ran afoul of the current local autonomy law but because the ministry was convinced that authorizing paid aides would not resolve the problem.
In January, the Supreme Court ruled that the matter went beyond the jurisdiction of a local assembly and therefore should be deliberated by the National Assembly.
Yoo’s remarks reverse his ministry’s stance. It is difficult to understand why he proposed the abrupt change. The minister has not bothered to find out how the general public thinks about the issue. He has not sought to listen to the views of ministry officials either.
In many countries, local councilors work without pay. In Korea, the government began to pay them in 2006, succumbing to their persistent demands for monetary remuneration. Currently, provincial or metropolitan councilors receive 50 million won to 60 million won a year.
If each of the 855 members of the 17 provincial and metropolitan councils is allowed to hire an aide whose annual salary is 50 million won, the total cost would amount to 42.75 billion won a year.
This would make a dent in the bottom line of local governments, given their shaky financial status. The average financial self-sufficiency ratio of local governments stands at a mere 51.5 percent.
Local councilors can do their job with the assistance of the council secretariat. There is no need for the government to rush to introduce a system for paid aides, which would simply increase taxpayers’ burden.
