No. No. No to county raises

May 21st, 2008 at 02:14pm Wally Haas

No way, no how, no matter how hard they try to justify it, Winnebago County’s elected officials should not get a pay raise when their constituents see their paychecks and their spending power declining by the day.

The average person in the county makes just 80 percent of what his or her national counterpart makes. Only 14 years ago, county residents made 100 percent of the national figure.

It’s not fair that elected officials want more when the folks who pay their salaries with their hard-earned tax dollars have less.

We’re sure some of the elected officials work hard and deserve a raise, but so does the factory worker who did a good job for more than 20 years only to get laid off and then have to find employment at a lower-paying service-sector position — if he could find employment at all.

In the Rockford region, which typically has unemployment rates higher than state and national averages, the jobless rate has gone up for eight straight months.

Those who are fortunate enough to have a job have a median household income of $44,776. Many of the officials who are in line for raises would make almost twice that.

According to Heartland Alliance’s Mid-America Institute on Poverty, 14.8 percent of Winnebago County residents lived in poverty in 2006, up almost 3 percentage points from 2005.

So we’ve seen spending power decrease and unemployment and poverty increase. How can elected officials, who supposedly wanted the job so they could serve the public, even think about asking for more when so many of their constituents are suffering?

There’s no good time for elected officials to seek more pay, but this seems like a very bad time indeed.

We understand that competitive salaries are needed to attract and retain good people in public office, but from what we’ve seen, the salaries elected officials are making today are more than competitive.

Let’s start with County Board members. They’re paid a base salary of $5,000. Board member who chair committees get an extra $1,000 and $250 for chairing a special committee.

Under the pay raise proposal, they would maintain the base rate and see their $100 per diem increase to $200 per board meeting up to $5,000. Under the new salary structure, no extra pay would be given for chairing a committee.
Not bad for part-time work.

The county auditor would get an increase from $76,052 to $81,473; county recorder, $76,052 to $81,473; county coroner, $76,052 to $95,000; circuit clerk, $76,344 to $81,473; and County Board chairman, $78,525 to $95,000, plus a cost-of-living increase over the next four years.

We think that’s very competitive, considering what others are getting paid in the Rock River Valley. There’s an argument that the salaries of county elected officials aren’t keeping pace with similar positions in comparable urban areas. Maybe that’s true, but other costs of living are lower here, too, especially housing costs.

The proposed salary changes would take place after the November election, starting Dec. 1 and continuing through Nov. 30, 2009.

On Tuesday, the board’s Democratic Caucus voted to freeze County Board member salaries until 2010, but left open the possibility of increasing wages for other elected officials.

The County Board is expected to talk about pay at its meeting tonight.

You can go and let board members know they should say no. If you can’t go, remember who how they voted when you go to the polls in November.

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