SF’s Ed Lee, LA’s Eric Garcetti Highest-Paid Mayors in America

Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco and Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles are the highest-paid and second-highest-paid mayors in America, respectively, according to a new report by the American City Business Journal.

Lee earns $289,000 per year, while Garcetti is a distant second, at $238,000 per year. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is fourth, earning $225,000 per year.

The Journal reports:

ACBJ’s research included 41 mayors whose budgeted salaries top the $100,000 threshold, including seven who are slated to earn more than $200,000 per year. It also included eight big-city mayors whose annual budgeted salaries fall below $40,000 per year.

Cities selected for this analysis included all 43 ACBJ markets as well as another 16 cities whose populations rank among the largest in the United States. The average budgeted salary for the entire group was $125,078 per year.

A city’s size — namely its population and annual budget — appears to be the most influential factor in determining a mayor’s salary, but not always. Among the 10 largest U.S. cities ranked by population, five mayors rank in the top 10 in annual salary. Likewise, among the 10 largest cities ranked by annual spending, seven mayors fall within the top 10 in pay.

Other California mayors also made the list of highest-paid municipal chief executives. Newly-installed Sacramento mayor Darrell Sternberg is #32, earning $128,000 per year. Sacramento San Jose’s mayor, Sam Liccardo, who infamously blamed an anti-Donald Trump riot on Trump himself, is #35 on the list, with an annual salary of $114,000.

Another phenomenon noted by the report: only 14 of the nation’s 60 big-city mayors are women.

Mayoral salaries are also dwarfed by some of the salaries granted to top civil servants in many municipalities. In Santa Monica, California, for example, over 100 officials receive more than $300,000 annually in total compensation.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.