The wages and bonuses of State Duma deputies reached a combined total of more than 250,000 rubles ($7,730) a month this fall, unidentified Duma officials said.
Deputies' base salaries increased from 32,900 rubles to 51,800 rubles as of Sept. 1, with another 202,000 rubles in monthly cash bonuses added in, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Monthly bonuses had previously been worth 128,400 rubles.
Duma spokesman Yury Shuvalov confirmed that lawmakers' wages have increased, but declined to specify by how much.
Some deputies said that the extra cash has not yet made it as far as their paychecks, however.
While some Cabinet officials have complained that their wages were too low, Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky has lambasted plans to raise his colleagues' salaries, saying it would prompt many deputies to "do nothing" and cling to their legislative seats.
President Vladimir Putin's decree, published on the Kremlin's website, also set first deputy prime ministers' salaries at 61,998 rubles starting Sept. 1, with a further increase to 97,221 rubles in September, 2014, deputy prime ministers' salaries at 57,378 rubles, rising to 92,242 rubles next September. Most ministers' salaries now sit at slightly over 50,000 rubles, but will jump to more than 80,000 next fall. No information on any cash bonuses was disclosed.
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov last month complained that the recent raises didn't go far enough, saying that wages were still "ridiculously low."
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