Following on from the recent municipal elections, several of our new mayors have hiked up their sueldos, their wages, as the first order of business. Whether this shows acuity in their ambition; or that they’ll be working harder than their predecessors and are worth a few extra bob to the tax-payers; or whether (I wonder) if they have to send part of it back to Party HQ:
It’s a cruel thought to suggest that mayors, and their councillors, can expect other forms of income above and 
beyond the official stipend, paid as always fourteen times a year.
There are, to balance this out, many mayors who take no wage at all – even if some of these might find other ways to make ends meet. I can only guess what these may be – planning permissions on certain bits of land perhaps, or a share in the caja from a new nightclub, or some modest commission on the new street-lighting.
Perhaps something far more simple: like an old friend of mine, mayor of a small pueblo where I used to live in my twenties, now deceased, who would be taken by the village taxi once a month down to the puticlub in the nearby town, where he was given a rum and coke followed by a jolly visit upstairs, the bill to be sent to the ayuntamiento and no questions asked (not even by his mum).
The councillors too, each with his own department, may find some opportunities, and we wish them well. However, the larder will be bare – beyond the chance of a small official stipend – for those in the opposition.
Many of the new mayors earning an extra dollop from their town halls are from Vox, or maybe the PP, plus we hear of one who comes from the PNV (she upped her annual salary over the outgoing one by a cool 30,000€). And why not. A mayor has many responsibilities and functions, and is the first one to get into trouble when things go wrong. Few of them will climb any higher in politics (and in theory, should return to their old job once they leave office).
In practice, this doesn’t always pan out, as the attractions of real-estate, secret bank accounts in Panama and eating a lot of gamba roja tend to become over the seasons ever more apparent.