Photo: Municipal Council – Dryanovo
“These figures are incorrect, and you will be held responsible for what you have written,” wrote the chairman of the Dryanovo Municipal Council, Todor Georgiev, in the WhatsApp application to a journalist from “Za Istinata” (“For the truth”) the author of the article The Municipal Councillors of Dryanovo Cost Taxpayers 282,000 BGN for a Year and Four Months.
According to Georgiev, the media provided inaccurate information regarding the salaries of the municipal councilors and his as chairman. As proof of his claims, he sent a screenshot of a bank transfer received from the Dryanovo Municipality on May 2nd of this year, amounting to 1,941.51 BGN. This is most probably the salary for April, of which Georgiev wrote: “here is my salary.”
However, the chairman of the Dryanovo Municipal Council omits important details about how much the councilors actually cost the local budgets. The gross remuneration—not only in the Dryanovo council but even in companies with just one employee where salaries are paid correctly—has social security contributions added. As a law-abiding person, he should be aware of this.
It should also be known that part of these social security contributions are paid by the employer. In his case, for the first four months of 2025, the Dryanovo Municipality—that is, the taxpayers—paid on top of his accrued salary: 1,160 BGN in personal income tax (PO), 280 BGN in mandatory pension insurance (DZPO), and 480 BGN in health insurance contributions.
Adding these amounts to the chairman’s gross salary, which according to an official report from the Dryanovo Municipality for the first four months of the year is 2,502 BGN, results in a total expenditure for the Municipality of 2,982 BGN for each month from January to April 2025. This sum does not include personal deductions, which everyone pays when receiving income under employment or other legal relationships, and hence the difference between the accrued amount and the actual amount deposited into Todor Georgiev’s bank account.
It is also important to emphasize that the social security contributions paid by the Municipality on the chairman’s salary will one day be reflected in his pension size, so it is not correct to exclude this sum. Moreover, “Za Istina” requested information about the expenses the Dryanovo Municipality incurs for salaries and social insurance contributions of the municipal councilors, not the net amount that actually enters their bank accounts.
“Za Istinata” (“For the truth”) cannot know exactly what has been deposited into Todor Georgiev’s bank account, since the text describing what city councilors in Dryanovo receive refers to information provided by the municipal administration, not from the bank servicing Georgiev.
Since the truth can only be one, we are attaching the information given to “Za Istinata” (“For the truth”) regarding Georgiev’s remuneration for 2025, all of 2024, and the two months of the 2023 term—note that the report for 2023 includes his salary for the entire year. According to the municipal administration’s assessment, this data was sent in this form, most likely because in his previous term Georgiev also served as chairman of the Dryanovo Municipal Council, but representing a different political formation.
“More important is who is pushing and ordering this publication,” Georgiev also wrote to “Za Istina.” As if, once a media outlet takes an interest in the salaries of the Dryanovo Municipal Council, it must be a commissioned job.
Todor Georgiev apparently overlooks the fact that society has the right to know what those competing for the citizens’ votes are earning. That is precisely why the meetings of the standing committees and the Municipal Council are now public—so citizens can see what their representatives are working on. Shedding light on salaries in any public sphere is a citizen’s right, and when someone cannot accept such transparency, it is easiest to dismiss it as a “commissioned” effort.
Todor Georgiev has a lengthy history in the Dryanovo Municipal Council. Between 2015 and 2018, he served as the chairman of the city’s council. In 2018, his mandate was prematurely terminated by votes from GERB. He commented on his opponents’ actions with a Facebook post, describing them as “removing the inconvenient.”
Two years later, for the same reasons, Galin Gerganov was ousted from his chairmanship in Dryanovo, and Todor Georgiev was elected in his place.
Georgiev can be characterized as an opponent of transparency. In the fall of 2021, when a councilor proposed to restrict filming inside the council chamber, Georgiev suggested that journalists attending sessions should legitimize themselves with press cards. He conveniently omitted, at the time, that the sessions of the Municipal Council are open to citizens, and journalists are also citizens whose right to attend sessions is protected by law. Likewise, their right to know how the local treasury spends money on local lawmakers.
By the way, Todor Georgiev is not known for having consistent political affiliations. In 2015, he was elected to the Municipal Council on the GERB list; four years later, he took the oath representing the “Vazrazhdane” party, and in 2023, he became a councilor on a coalition list of “The Left.”
