Uruguay
Montevideo City Hall cut trust positions compared with 2024, but changed little since Bergara took office
According to IMM data published by El País, the current administration has 111 political trust contracts. That is 32 fewer than in December 2024, though just one fewer than at the end of June 2025.
Montevideo City Hall currently maintains 111 political trust contracts, according to official information reported by El País. The figure shows a decline from December 2024, when there were 143, but it has changed little from June 30, 2025, just days before Mario Bergara took office, when there were 112.
The mayor had argued that the comparison should be made against the end of 2024 and not against the moment he took office, since, according to interviews cited by El País, several contracts from the previous administration had already ended by then and other trusted officials had moved to the national government after the change in administration.
Still according to that outlet, after taking office on July 11, 2025, Bergara added 89 trust contracts and kept 50 of the 112 that already existed. Some of those continuations were extended temporarily until January 31 of the following year, pending a definition of needs and profiles.
The administration also says there was a drop in the cost of these appointments. In the 2025 Accountability Report, the municipality went from spending 303 million pesos in 2024 to 284 million pesos in 2025, a difference of 19 million pesos, according to what the director of Human Management and Material Resources, Gustavo Pérez, told the Departmental Board in a hearing cited by El País. The weight of these contracts within the personal compensation item fell from 2.2% to 1.9%.
Among the 111 contracts there are management, executive and advisory roles. As of November last year, Bergara’s administration had 31 advisers. According to an information request by councilor Juan Ignacio Abdala, reproduced by El País, 24 of them were in SIR grades 15 to 18, with nominal incomes ranging from 139,797 to 195,291 pesos for eight hours a day. The highest salary corresponded to an adviser in the Economic Development department, with SIR grade 19 and a nominal income of 218,527 pesos.
The newspaper also noted that direct contracts have significantly higher pay than positions filled through competitive hiring. The average base salary for the former is 143,150 pesos, while in the largest staff categories starting salaries range from 60,632 to 76,924 pesos. In the professional and scientific category, the average starting salary is 123,190 pesos.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not conduct its own reporting on this fact.
