1. Walk us through the savings, how does that break down?
A: We talked about this in 2023 when the state first proposed cutting Metro Council in half.
That pay now totals over $1 million for all 40 members, who are part time.
Then health and dental benefits add more than $439,000 last fiscal year, according to Metro records provided to OpenTheBooks.com via a Tennessee Public Records Act request. That adds up to almost $1.5 million.
That’s more than the annual budget in FY24 for three individual Metro departments and boards: the Community Oversight Board, which was abolished and replaced with a less powerful Community Review Board, their budget is also less than Council salaries — also Human Relations Commissions and Criminal Justice Planning.
Cutting the council in half from 40 to 20 cuts that $1.5 million figure to $732,000.
You may remember that back in 2021, the Council voted to have former council members contribute more for their health insurance once they leave office — paying up to 75%. But councilmembers in office still get a really good deal of paying 25% of their premiums, while taxpayers pay the other 75%.
So that’s contributing to the cost of these benefits for part-time employees.
2. We’ve reported about cutting the size of the council– how does it compare to other cities?
A: Metro Council is abnormally large. The only larger city councils in the country are in New York City with 8.5 million residents and in Chicago, which has 2.7 million residents.
Cities with larger populations than Nashville have much smaller councils— Los Angeles has 3.8 million residents and the council has 15 members.
So the council is large, when you compare it to other cities and whether or not cutting it in half is political retribution from state lawmakers, it does bring the size of the council in line with other councils around the country.