Officials Win Raise, Lose Credibility A Poor Example Even During Tough Times, Public Officials Have A Soft Life

Executives at top U.S. corporations have earned the current public criticism. Who but the recipients can say with a straight face that they have earned those six- or seven-figure salaries and bonuses? Private-sector CEOs are not alone. In government agencies all across the nation, there is a managerial class whose salaries and annual nest-featherings make the taxpaying public gag.

High managerial salaries - and especially the annual increases in them - become unconscionable at a time when layoffs, relentless productivity demands and other punishing cuts are forced upon employees who perform the work for which business and government organizations exist.

The most recent local example was at Spokane’s City Hall. There, 16 administrators whose annual pay ranged from $65,000 to $93,000 received across-the-board raises of 2.75 percent to 3.25 percent. The public, which has watched taxes rise and services wither as a result of these same administrators’ actions, is enraged. Similarly, at Eastern Washington University, faculty members are steamed over their top administrators’ out-of-line salaries, which range from $85,000 to $130,000. And teachers at local community colleges have protested salaries and raises granted to administrators there; the top job, at $106,000, pays 30 percent more than it did five years ago.

These organizations and others are cutting services and raising costs to customers and tightening the screws on employees. There’s misery everywhere - except in the soft chairs of executive suites.

Managerial salaries are two, three, four or more times those of teachers, police officers, inspectors and so on who do the organizations’ work.

Would members of the bean-counting, convention-going set quit if forced to struggle along without another raise? Not likely. Many have climbed their organization’s ladders and have roots in it as well as in the community.

Smart managers listen to the worker bees rather than secondguessing and alienating them. At Spokane’s city libraries, for example, employees chose unpaid days off instead of layoffs and service cuts. Managers who want credibility in difficult times don’t place their own power and comforts first; they set a disciplined example of frugality, sacrifice and service. Loyal customers and workers will bring a payoff as times improve.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: City managers still underpaid

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