Gwinnett Commissioners Consider Giving Themselves a Raise

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA -- Members of Gwinnett County’s Board of Commissioners are considering giving themselves a raise.

At a work session Monday covered by the Gwinnett Daily Post, commissioners discussed raising their salaries to as much as $45,000 a year, which would be a $15,200 bump.

If approved, it would be the first time commissioners got a raise since 2007.

Board Chairman Charlotte Nash said raising the commission salaries is important to the future of Gwinnett County.

“We have to be able to continue to attract qualified folks to run for these offices,” she said.

But, even so, Nash, a county retiree, asked that the board chair’s current $50,000 salary not be increased.

“Since I’m already drawing a retirement check, it did not feel right to me to accept a raise,” Nash said, according to the Daily Post. “That’s just my stance on it … I don’t want the district commissioners to be held up from getting an increase because of me, though.”

If commissioners approve pay raises at their March 1 meeting, the raises would not go into effect until after this year’s general election, in which three of the commission’s four members are up for re-election.

Commissioners also discussed the possibility of a slightly smaller pay raise -- perhaps to $42,500 per year.

Either raise would put Gwinnett commissioners roughly in line with their metro Atlanta peers.

Fulton County commissioners receive $41,248 in compensation per year while DeKalb County commissioners get $41,764, according to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs’ 2015 survey of salaries for elected officials.

Nash told the commissioners that total compensation for those positions may actually be as much as $44,342 and $42,757, respectively, however.

Cobb County salaries were not listed in the survey, but Nash told her colleagues that county paid its commissioners between $43,860 and $44,095.

Read the Daily Post’s full report on the meeting here.