Santa Cruz de Tenerife, April 24 (EFE) .- Between 4,600 euros for less and 9,000 euros for more, on average 5,500 euros. These have been the monthly income of the deputies of the Parliament of the Canary Islands with exclusive dedication throughout the tenth legislature that is now ending.
The salaries and per diems of politicians are always the subject of controversy and when the question of how much a regional deputy earns in the Canary Islands is posed, adding all the concepts, the initial answer must necessarily be that “it depends”.
The fixed income, that is, salaries, complements and extra payments, and the variables, that is, compensation and assistance, also known as per diems, are the sources of income for parliamentary representatives.
The amount of remuneration has remained unchanged throughout the legislature.
However, in the latest regulatory reform, the salary collection period has been extended for all those who have exclusive dedication (not only for members of the Permanent Deputation) until the holding of the elections and not until the dissolution of Parliament as was the case. in previous legislatures. That translates to almost two more months of income.
Fixed salaries range between 4,300 and 6,700 euros per month, including bonuses and prorated extra payments, to which are added attendance allowances.
According to an analysis of the individualized data provided by the Autonomous Chamber on its website, the allowances received by the 70 deputies in this legislature, called compensation and assistance, amount to just over 2.3 million euros, in the absence of publishing the March, April and May. That represents a monthly average of 753 euros each.
In any case, there is a lot of variability, because income from per diems ranges from almost 340 euros per month on average for the deputy who has received the least to nearly 2,300 each month for the one who has received the most.
The most important factor on which the income of the deputies depends is whether or not they are full-time, that is, whether or not the deputy is paid by Parliament, since those who do not have full-time receive only allowances and compensation for attending to parliamentary meetings and sessions.
80 percent of the deputies have exclusive dedication, 56 in total according to the internet portal, a regime to which they can freely adhere and which involves receiving a salary, without being able to dedicate themselves to private activities except part-time teaching and research, prior authorization.
However, the deputy with exclusive dedication can be in other institutions such as town halls or councils. The deputies who are members of the Government receive their salary from the Executive and therefore do not have exclusive dedication, but they do charge for assistance.
The income of each deputy also depends on whether or not they have a position in the Parliament structure and the regularity with which they go to the Chamber, since their presence or absence in plenary sessions, commissions, meetings or acts of representation determines the additional money that they receive as per diems.
SALARIES
The basic monthly salary is the same for all full-time deputies: 3,975.05 euros. Two extra payments are added to this salary, one in June and another in December, and this is where the differences begin.
The extra payments of the president of Parliament are 3,107.35 euros each; in the case of the rest of the members of the table, spokespersons and presidents of each group, there are two payments of 2,511.59; alternate spokespersons have extra pay of 2,249.56 euros; and finally the extra payments of the deputies without additional charge are 1,987.53.
Together with the regular salary and the extra payments, the deputies who have a position have a monthly supplement, but not the ordinary deputies.
There are a total of 26 deputies with a position, that is, with a supplementary salary, fifteen men and eleven women: one president, four board members, seven group spokespersons, six group presidents, and eight alternate spokespersons.
The monthly supplement for the president is 2,239.63 euros, the other members of the board, spokespersons and group presidents receive a monthly supplement of 1,048.12 and alternate spokespersons receive 524.05 euros.
In short, prorating the extra payments and adding the salary and the supplement, the president of Parliament receives an average of 6,733 euros per month for fixed remuneration; the rest of the members of the Bureau of Parliament, the spokespersons and the presidents of the groups 5,442 euros and the substitute spokespersons 4,874.
The other deputies with exclusive dedication but without position have a fixed monthly remuneration prorated the extras of 4,306 euros.
DIETS
In addition to the fixed monthly remuneration, men and women deputies have a variable remuneration, which are allowances or compensation for attendance, a supplement that parliamentarians receive when they attend the various Parliament meetings, including those who do not have exclusive dedication.
Per diems are variable and depend in turn on several factors, in the first place on the number of times they attend plenary sessions, commissions, acts of representation or meetings.
These compensations also depend on other factors, such as the position that each one has within the Chamber (the higher the post, the higher the diet), the island of origin (bearing in mind that the seat of Parliament is in Tenerife, the deputies of this island have an inferior diet), whether or not they have exclusive dedication or the type of meeting.
For example, if the president is from Tenerife, as is the case in this legislature, he charges a diet (“for the responsibilities of government and permanent management at the head of the Chamber”) a maximum of 145 euros per day, which would be 175 if he were from Gran Canaria and 180 if from another island.
The spokespersons of Tenerife charge 90 euros for attending a parliamentary session, which drops to 60 for an ordinary deputy. If they are from Gran Canaria, they are 130 and 83 euros, respectively, and if they are from another island, the spokesperson receives 160 euros and the deputy 113.
According to the sum made from the individualized data provided by Parliament, the 70 deputies, with or without exclusive dedication, have obtained just over 2.3 million euros in allowances and compensation for assistance from July 2019 to February of 2023, in the absence of counting March and April and May, whose data are not yet available.
The monthly average is 753 euros per deputy in those 44 months. As in everything, here there is also a lot of variation and the weight of the position is noticeable, although not always, because sometimes the deputies who have a position are not the most assiduous.
The deputy who has received the most allowances is the president of Parliament, 2,293 euros per month on average; the least, 337 euros.
With allowances of more than 1,500 euros per month on average, there is another member of the table and one of the parliamentary spokesmen.
Between 1,000 and 1,500 euros per month in compensation for assistance there are eleven deputies, all of them among parliamentary positions; between 500 and 1,000 there are another 35 parliamentarians and twenty-one are below 500 euros.
By circumscription, it is the deputies of La Gomera who obtain the most per diems, 1,059 euros per month on average, followed by those of El Hierro with 842.
Those from Gran Canaria earn a monthly average of 808 euros in per diem, those from Tenerife 766, those from Lanzarote 715, those from Fuerteventura 704, those from La Palma 684 and those from the autonomous region 613.
By parliamentary group, ASG leads the allowances with an average of 1,126 euros per month for each of its three components, followed by the four from Nueva Canarias with 954, the two from the mixed group with 909, the eleven from the PP with 756, the 25 from the PSOE with 750, the 20 from CC with 671 and the four from Sí Podemos Canarias with 650. The only non-attached deputy reaches 624 euros.
FIXED AND VARIABLE MONTHLY INCOME
Once the fixed remunerations have been counted and the variable indemnities for assistance added, one can already have a more accurate idea of how much the Canary Islands parliamentarians earn exclusively dedicated per month. The average of all of them is 5,561 euros.
Grouping the deputies by their position, the president has received in the legislature 9,025 euros per month on average, since the salary, supplement and prorated extra payments are 6,733.57 and the monthly average in allowances is 2,292.91 euros.
Adding these same sources of income, the other four members of the Parliamentary Bureau have received an average of 6,830 euros per month, slightly more than the nearly 6,600 euros of the spokespersons, the 6,200 of the group presidents and the 5,600 of the alternate spokespersons.
Deputies without charge with exclusive dedication have had an average income of around 4,900 euros per month, with variations ranging from around 5,200 for those who earn the most to almost 4,700 for the least, differences attributable to per diems received. EFE