Photo: screenshot from “Za Istina” of the video broadcast, archive
Over the period of one year and four months—from the beginning of this governing term until February 2025—taxpayers in Dryanovo have paid a total of 282,000 BGN for the Municipal Council.
This amount includes the gross salaries of the councilors plus the mandatory social security contributions according to the Social Security Code.
The data was obtained through the Law on Access to Public Information and provided by the Dryanovo Municipality, broken down by months and years from November 2023, when the current council was elected for the 2023–2027 term.
For two workdays per month:
In January 2025, the Dryanovo Municipal Council held two meetings—an extraordinary one on January 16 and a regular one on January 30. Each was accompanied by two meetings of the standing committees. The local representatives received 1,251 BGN for this work.
In February, there were also two council meetings and two committee meetings, with the salary slightly higher—1,281 BGN—adding 30 BGN to the previous month’s amount. The total paid by the budget for these two months was 30,398 BGN, excluding the chairperson’s salary, which is 2,502 BGN monthly.
However, this is not all. Employer’s social security contributions are also paid on top of the councilors’ wages, increasing the total expenditure; including mandatory contributions, the chairperson’s costs rise to 2,983 BGN.
For the entire year 2024, the total gross wages for the Dryanovo Municipal Council amounted to 175,000 BGN.
The report does not clarify why there are differences in the amounts received by individual councilors—some received around 13,400 BGN for the year, others almost 14,907 BGN. Perhaps the variation is due to absences from committee or council meetings.
The chairperson, Todor Georgiev, received 32,292 BGN for all of 2024, including mandatory social security contributions and income tax.
From the data broken down by year, it appears that the chairman of the Dryanovo Municipal Council received the highest salary in the first month of the current term—November 2023. At that time, his gross salary was 3,500 BGN, and with social security contributions, the total cost to the municipality reached 4,160 BGN.
It is difficult to determine from the provided report exactly where the total amount comes from; it’s possible that it includes a portion of owed compensation from the previous term, during which Georgiev also served as chairman.
For November and December 2023—the first two months of this term—the total expenses for the salaries of the Dryanovo Municipal Council were 26,100 BGN.
Freezing salaries for savings
The salaries of councilors in Dryanovo are calculated as a percentage of the average gross salary in the town’s administration. According to the internal rules of the local body, councillors receive 50% of the average municipal salary for participation in meetings, and 20% for their involvement in the work of standing committees.
This means that whenever salaries in the municipality increase, the salaries of the municipal councilors also go up. To save money in the budget of the small municipality, at the beginning of the year, the Dryanovo Municipal Council decided to freeze their salaries—that is, to prevent the increase that would lead to higher salaries in the municipal administration.
By a decision made at the proposal of seven councilors, the Dryanovo Council set a cap at 65% of the average salary in the administration, which will determine the councilors’ remuneration for 2025.
This decision does not affect their salaries for the first two months of the year, when their earnings are about one hundred leva higher compared to the same period in 2024.
According to data from the National Statistical Institute, as of December 31, 2024, the population of Dryanovo Municipality is 7,263 people, of whom 5,537 live in the municipal center.
The Dryanovo Municipal Council has 13 members. No single political force holds a majority. The party with the most mandates is “BSP for Bulgaria” (5 seats), while GERM, “Left Coalition,” and PP-DB each have 2 seats, “Bulgarsky Vuzhod” and “Citizens for the Municipality” have one each.
