Bethel Finance: Ministers' perks cut

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The Knesset Finance Committee today reduced the list of ministers' salary perks. Ministers will no longer be eligible for free pension advice, reimbursement for refreshments outside the office, and free foreign travel for their spouses during official trips. The committee also reduced the number of ministers' free newspaper subscriptions from five to two.

Henceforth, ministers will only be eligible for a free car, office services, subscriptions to two daily newspapers, a cable or satellite TV subscription, free tolls, telephone and fax services, including caller ID, a voice mailbox, domestic and international calls and faxes, collect international calls for fulfilling their duties, and an internet package. Ministers will also be eligible for up to NIS 3,908 for foreign language classes, and 25% of their health tax, which equalizes the benefit to the one received by judges. Today's decisions equalize ministers' perks to those of MKs.

A three-member group of Finance Committee members, comprising committee chairman MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism), MK Zion Pinyan (Likud) and Yaakov Edery (Kadima) made the decisions, together with Minister of Justice Yaakov Neeman and Minister without Portfolio Benny Begin, who replaced Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz who was recused due to a conflict of interests.

The Finance Committee kept judges' perks unchanged, including their unique seniority perks. However, it decided to equalize the Supreme Court judges' free car and salary linkage perks to those of ministers. The perks of presidents of district court will be equalized to perks of ministry director generals, and the perks of presidents of magistrates courts will be equalized to perks of ministry deputy director generals. The perks of presidents of labor courts will be slightly less.

The Finance Committee decided that the state will cover 75% of ministers and judges' tax cost for health services, while the ministers and judges will pay 25%. The committee decided that judges' salaries should be linked to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the average national salary in equal proportions.