When Lehigh and Northampton County adopted Home Rule Charters in 1978, they set initial salaries for their execs and legislators. The full-time county execs were paid $30,000 (Lehigh) and $35,000 (Northampton) while part-time legislators were paid $2,500 (Lehigh) and $4,000 (Northampton).If these 1978 salaries were adjusted just for cost of living, our local county officials would be bringing home a lot more bacon today. Northampton County Exec Stoffa would be paid $107,000 and his Lehigh County counterpart, Don Cunningham, would gross $92,000. Northampton County Council members would receive $12,000 salaries instead of the current $7,000. Lehigh County Commissioners would bring home $7,600 instead of $5,500.
Northampton County alone has an annual budget of $316 million, but the $65,000 annual salary paid to its top administrator is actually lower than the salary paid to members in his own cabinet. When Stoffa was recently asked what he thinks a county exec should be paid, his answer was "at least $100,000."
After all, you get what you pay for, bippy. Although many local leaders will tell you they're here to serve, a glance at their campaign expense reports makes you wonder just who they're serving. Let's face it. Our current salary structure is designed to attract political hacks looking to advance themselves, and zillionaires who've lost touch with the common man. I've heard many very qualified private businessmen, state legislators, and others simply state they could not afford to live on the meager wages paid to local elected officials.
At last Thursday's Council meeting, Northampton County Council quietly introduced an "Elected Officials Salary Ordinance," which will raise salaries for the next executive ($65,000 to $85,000), council members ($7,000 to $9,500), and controller ($39,000 to $50,000). A vote on this ordinance is scheduled for August 17.
Problem solved, right? Not exactly. The increases proposed are still way below what is needed to attract quality candidates.
And here's another problem, at least in Northampton County. How can elected officials even consider giving themselves a raise when many of its rank and file employees have been struggling without a wage increase for three years? What kind of message does that send? After massive layoffs to help pay for the judges' Taj Mahal, employee morale has been in the tank. Although a salary increase is definitely needed for elected officials, their first priority should be the county's backbone - row office employees who are actually doing the work. Real leaders would take care of struggling employees before thinking of themselves.
First things first.
7 comments:
The cluttered, overcrowded cubbyholes and corridors in the Government Center's basement make it below-grade in more respects than merely being sunk below ground level.
The judges' eight new courtrooms, each with its own private pissoire and crapper, and private penthouse dining room exert a gravitational force on the rabbit warren of row offices below.
Stacks of official documents that, for lack of file cabinets or space to accomodate them, rise like stalagmites toward the ceilings that like one giant, monolithic stalactite scrunch down to meet them.
The piles of paper conceal the row office employees, overworked and underpaid and practically sitting on top of each other, from any spelunking member of the public who dares enter those claustrophobic catacombs in search of row office-provided services.
Yeah., Billy, it's sad. And I do believe Council will quietly pass the payraise while employeees continue to get nothing. But the judges' wind-sensitive fountains are right on schedule.
You can put makeup on a pig, but it is still a pig!
Or, as my father would constantly remind me when I'd tell him of my latest efforts at reform, "You can't shine shit."
And then there's William Shakespeare who said, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
Well, bippy, I just got around to doing my daily "tour de Blog", and while nothing elevated my testosterone levels, your post, and the indifference of the mighty judges set my blood to boiling!
Dear Anon 2:53, I am sorry to tell you that you've only sdeen the tip of the iceberg. I'm working on a post about the courthouse expansion that will definitely open some eyes.
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