Government approves controversial legislation regulating top officials’ salaries

Despite intense pushback from politicians on both sides of the aisle, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday approved a controversial bill panned by critics as an effort to significantly raise lawmakers’ and cabinet members’ salaries at the same time as taxpayers are being hit by both rising consumer prices, inflation and multiple tax increases.

The legislation, sponsored by Likud MK Avihai Boaron, aims to regulate and equalize salaries between senior officials in all three branches of government, in response to some lawmakers’ complaints that some senior officials, like Supreme Court judges and the head of the Prisons Service, earn more than President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

While Boaron says that the bill would actually lead to salary cuts for the highest earners, critics, including within the coalition, contend it is actually intended to raise ministers’ and lawmakers’ salaries.

The bill drew criticism from Shas chairman Aryeh Deri, who tweeted ahead of the vote that his party would “oppose any initiative to raise the salaries of MKs and ministers” in the middle of a war, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who indicated that his support is conditioned on there being “no salary increases.”

“As the entire economy faces budgetary pressures and economic challenges, it is our moral duty to set a personal example. Right now, we are all doing our part,” Smotrich stated — calling to “cut the wages of those with excessive salaries, such as the president of the Supreme Court, who currently earns over NIS 120,000 per month.”

“Lowering wages would allow for both a necessary cut in the state budget and proper equality among senior officials,” Smotrich asserted.

In response, Boaron on Sunday tweeted that the bill’s express purpose was “to reduce salary celebrations in the public sector” and that “the salaries of Knesset members, ministers and the prime minister will not increase under any circumstances.”

“All the talk about raising the salaries of MKs and ministers is complete fake news,” he wrote.

The committee approved the bill on condition that “the law will not raise anyone’s salary” but rather “will result in a salary cut for Supreme Court justices,” a spokesman for Justice Minister Yariv Levin told The Times of Israel.

Levin is one of the main drivers behind the coalition’s judicial overhaul agenda, which aims to weaken the judicial system’s power over the other branches of government.

If passed, the bill would establish a three-member public committee that would determine the salary of the president of the state, from which all other officials’ salaries would be derived, in a manner intended “to create equality between the governmental authorities.”

The president, the prime minister and the president of the Supreme Court would all earn equivalent salaries, while the opposition leader would receive 94 percent of their salary and government ministers and MKs would bring in 88% and 76%, respectively.

Under the existing system, the salaries of government ministers and lawmakers are tied to the average market salary. The Knesset Finance Committee approves changes to the salaries of government ministers while MKs’ wages are controlled by the Knesset House Committee, which acts on the recommendations of an advisory panel.

Currently, Supreme Court Chief Justice Isaac Amit earns a monthly salary of over NIS 120,000 (approximately $33,113), President Isaac Herzog NIS 68,000 ($18,764) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu NIS 59,000 ($16,280).

The disparity in wages between some officials has raised some lawmakers’ hackles, with Shas MK Yinon Azoulai in 2023 pushing back against a move to curb a planned raise to MKs’ salaries by urging that their salaries be raised on par with that of the Supreme Court president.

In a private WhatsApp message published by national broadcaster Kan last January, National Missions and Settlements Minister Orit Strock, a member of Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, claimed there are government ministers who are struggling financially.

“No ministers get fat salaries. I know ministers who don’t manage to make ends meet each month even though they work very hard, night and day — and there are even those whose parents are supporting them financially,” she wrote at the time.

Ministers in the government make NIS 58,274 ($15,568) per month; the average monthly salary in Israel is around NIS 12,379 ($3,289).

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party has also come out against the bill, as has Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman.

“In the midst of an economic and security crisis, when the middle class is collapsing under the burden, the coalition is promoting a law to raise the salaries of ministers and MKs,” the party said in a statement on Sunday.

“If the shameful law is approved – members of the Yesh Atid faction will donate the salary increase to reservists and their families.”

In a video statement, Liberman said that he objected to raising salaries while Israeli families can’t make ends meet, insisting that he “won’t let this happen.”

Boaron’s bill is only the latest in a series of similar, failed, efforts to overhaul the way that salaries are determined.

Now that it has garnered government backing, the bill will go to the Knesset plenum for a preliminary vote before being referred to committee for further debate.

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