The salaries of community social workers will increase by about 20% as of January 1, 2017. A bill to this effect was passed by Parliament in two readings on December 22, IPN reports.

Bill author Valentina Stratan said the financial resources needed for raising the salaries of community social workers have been identified by the Government. “In the state budget, this sum of 12.6 million lei was earmarked already in the division “local public authorities’ budget”. Thus, the long-awaited solution will start to be applied on January 1 next year,” stated the MP.

Communist MP Oxana Domenti proposed that by this bill the salaries of the other social assistants, who work at children’s and old people’s homes, should be raised according to the same principle, but the proposal was rejected for the reason that the adoption of the bill would be thus delayed. The MP was recommended to draft a separate bill on the issue.