If county government salaries are "too low compared with comparable local governments," the answer is easy, right? Just raise those salaries, and be quick about it. But not all county departments are equal -- some have higher-than-average salaries, some lower. It makes sense to target raises where there is a specific problem:
The single best measure of job satisfaction must be whether people stick with their jobs or resign to take other positions. Most county departments are doing a good job of retaining employees.
The assessor's office reports an average turnover rate of 2 percent per year. That wasn't a lone exception, either. There is a 3 percent turnover rate in the auditor's office and the highway department, for example.
Overall, Allen County has a 9.5 percent annual turnover rate. There's the first cue for further action: In departments where turnover is far below the county's average, there's no rush to reinvent the system of employee compensation.
And what if "comparable local governments" include Fort Wayne, which has some of the highest salaries in the state, as Kevin Leininger points out?
Fort Wayne isn't Indiana's biggest city, but you'd never know it from the salaries paid to some of its officials and employees.
Mayor Graham Richard's annual base salary is tops in the state and nearly $10,000 more than Bart Peterson earns as mayor of Indianapolis, which has four times the population of Fort Wayne. And Richard's not unique. According to a survey by the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, Fort Wayne's police chief, parks director and City Council members all make more than their counterparts in other Hoosier cities.
Comments
But check this out- it comes from an article from a few months back in the Indy Star- when you look at pay by POPULATION things are much more in line (with Indy being a noticable exception):
What mayors make
Carmel
Jim Brainard
and I should have added- since our population has increased to 250,000 since that article, Mayor Richards pay per 1000 has dropped a bit.
On the *up* side....Fort Wayne doesn't have as many homicides as Indy...or Gary (yet).
Using population as a barometer to reflect salaries DOES puts things in their proper perspective.
By the same token, figuring out how many police officers (and firefighters) we have per 1000 people would probably make a much larger statement.
And to continue that line of thinking, if one were to calculate *how many* officers we have patrolling our streets (during a given shift), that *might* be an eye-opening experience (compared to other cities the same size).
I know for a fact that our city of 250,000 has ONLY FOUR animal control officers on the street at any time. Other departments are always short-handed as well.
ACSD always seems to never make any progress with the active warrant list. It always hovers around 6500-7000 warrants. And wasn't Jim Herman getting a *nice* salary?
Are we getting OUR (tax)dollar's worth, politically speaking?
You decide.
B.G.
all city, county, and courts personnel are overpaid, and subsidized by all the part, time, minimum wage, no benefit jobs that the economic salves pay to their pricey patronage overseers. If these people feel they are underpaid, I heard mc donalds is hiring, or they can leave and go somewhere else that pays them more.(as-if).
You know , there's a big difference between mc donalds, and mc donnell douglas.
Maybe if some of our overseers had to live like their economic wage slaves, we'd see some motivation to change the laws, so everybody can make more money, and have better jobs. I dont get health insurance, benefits, vacations, pensions. why should I subsidize someone else with my 3 $6 an hour "service economy" jobs?
how many of those overpaid government patronage jobs can we privatize, outsource, offshore or give to local citizens who making half of what our overpaid bureaucrats, would be willing to do. Will serve as mayor, for beer, and serve you all a free one too. 6-packs, not 6 sigma!