Well here we are in an election year and for Alabamians that means: Pay-Raise Time. That is if you’re a county or municipal official – state level too, but that’s beyond the scope of a Jubilee column.
As I understand it, Alabama officials can’t grant themselves a pay raise, but they can do it for their successors – or for themselves if they get re-elected. So, in the absence of some third party stepping in and by some so-far-unknown legal means doing for them (don’t they wish), our local politicos have to get a pay raise into the budget before the election this fall, or miss out altogether.
Now as a taxpayer I’m all for paying a fair salary to our mayors and council folks and county commissioners, but defining “fair” is a lot harder than declaring that you’re in favor of being fair. I mean, what are these guys worth in the open market? I’ll leave the answer up to you, the readers – and don’t send me a bunch of e-mails sharing your thoughts on the value in dollars and cents of our elected officials. You can put whatever your thoughts are into action when you vote next time.
So what’s “fair?” Unfortunately “fair” too often is translated into paying as much as the guy with the same job title in the city (or county or whatever) next door makes. Unless that poor slob is working for less than your guy. In this event, pay-raise proponents usually start pushing percent increases instead of talking actual total pay. And what’s really nifty is that these percentages are very often the basis of pay increases for the professional staff.
And if they get more so should (as too many suggest) the elected officials they serve under. This means that when employee pay scales are being constructed and adjusted upward, the elected officials approving them are setting themselves up for an increase in pay too. Worse, since we all know that we have the best and the brightest serving in staff and elected positions (when not in jail), someone always can justify throwing as much (public) money as we can find at all of them – in recognition of this purported excellence.
Notice that nowhere have I mentioned a methodology for setting pay or pay raises – stuff like job complexity or responsibilities or even an analysis of reasons why people hire on or opt to quit. Nope. These things may have been legitimately considered once, but now one pay raise here justifies another one over there, which can then be used as the basis for yet more raises all over the place, with the taxpayers footing the bill.
Orange Beach Councilwoman Joni Blalock recently demonstrated what I think is a unique ability to incorporate all that is wrong with this process into a single council meeting. A report of this recent meeting describes her as urging an increase in council members’ pay to match what neighboring Gulf Shores pays its council.
Who knows if Gulf Shores salaries are reasonable, but Miss Joni sure is certain that Orange Beach should follow them on the way up. When this logic failed, she then offered an even more scary reason to bump up their pay: Since Orange Beach municipal workers have received major pay raises and are now the highest paid this area, elected officials should enjoy the same status. It’s all just paying people appropriately she professed. And I am left to guess that to her “appropriate” translates into “As much as possible.”
Joni Blalock is hardly unique in trying to race to the top with public servants’ pay, but she provides an easy real-world example of this behavior. She’s this week’s Poster-Politician representing the whole gang of our local leaders who are happy to raise the personnel costs of government without any demonstrable benefit – except to the politicians and government employees who are raking in the bucks.
Any personnel professional will tell you that this is a lousy practice – one that in a profit and loss environment would not be tolerated by any half-competent management team. But government doesn’t have to make a profit to stay in business – there’s always gonna be revenues and they (almost) always go up. So wages can inflate and salary structures can bloat well beyond what is necessary to attract and retain the right kind of folks to run our cities and counties.
They got the costs covered – at least until the economy gets shaky and there’s a decline in tax revenues and fees being collected. Then comes the pain of contemplating layoffs, service cuts and termination of all those popular nice-to-have programs – but almost never does pay get rolled back.
Looking at what’s going on in council and commission meetings around Baldwin since the first of the year causes me to think we are approaching that point right now. Prudent politicians, like the other Blalock in the Orange Beach government – Mayor Pete – should step back from this race to raise the people-costs to their governments and take a pass on raises – no matter what the other guy is doing.
In case you missed it, Mayor Blalock ended discussion of more pay for the Orange Beach elected officials with a simple statement of his position: “Anybody that’s worried about what the salary is, I’m not sure I want them up here.”
How ‘bout all the rest of you folks around here who were elected to serve the people, doing this: tear out this page, underline Pete Blalock’s words and keep them in front of you until any urge to vote for a pay raise passes.
Contact Pete Gleszer at jubilee@lagniappemobile.com.
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