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In the last 13 years, most state department heads have received pay increases outpacing 
inflation. One exception is the Director of Parks and Recreation, whose salary in 1996 was $76,440. In FY09, it was 31 percent higher at $100,360. That works out to an average increase of 2.4 percent per year. But other department heads have done better. For instance, the directors of the state’s seven health districts have gotten raises ranging from a modest 3 percent annually, to a whopping 5.5 percent. Carol Moehrle, director of the North Central Health District, and the only current district director who was in office in 1996, has seen her salary grow from $55,868 to $95,638, a 71 percent increase or 5.5 percent per year/Jay Howell, Idaho Freedom Forum. More here.
Question: What do you make of the news that department heads in the state of Idaho are getting good raises when average Idahoans are struggling to hang onto their jobs?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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idawa on December 09 at 1:41 p.m.
Are you asking if we think that all pay increase should be tied to overall inflation rather than the individual markets for that position? Or, rather, do you only support free market principles for private enterprise and that the public sector should ignore that broader labor markets exist? I would be more concerned if there was a study that suggested the Department heads were receiving increase greater than their counterparts in the general economy, but that isn’t what this “study” says.
redman on December 09 at 2:30 p.m.
Compare that with CDA city salaries and its low