Politics & Government

Supervisors Raise County Executive's Salary

New county executive earns nearly $10,000 more

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors knows good help is hard to find -- and it's expensive, even in a recession.

That's why the county is paying its county executive nearly $10,000 more than the retiring county executive.

Tony Griffin, who is retiring from the job after 12 years, earns $244,989.

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The Supervisors on Tuesday hired his successor, Edward Long Jr., a former deputy county executive and chief financial officer, for a salary of $252,287.

"The county executive’s salary was negotiated with the Board of Supervisors and it is market-driven,"  spokesperson Merni Fitzgerald said of the 3 percent increase. "As an example of the market, recently, the City of Alexandria hired a new city manager with a salary of $245,000 and Fairfax County is eight times the size of the City of Alexandria."
 
"Also to put this in perspective, Fairfax County staff have not being receiving regular cost of living or other compensation increases for a number of years; if there had been regular compensation increases for county staff over the past four years, the current county executive’s salary would today be higher than Mr. Long’s starting salary," she said.

Find out what's happening in Viennawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

County employees received a two percent salary increase last year.

Long will run the day-to-day operations of the largest local government in the Washington Metro area. He will serve the 1 million residents of Fairfax County  and oversee a $6.7 billion budget, one larger than four states. He's the boss of more than 12,000 county employees.


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