Reply With QuoteEach legisitlator who votes yes will be predominately displayed as a politican who rose the cost of living in WNY. I guess we'll have to work on a new speakupwny section.
The article in the Buffalo News
Call to raise leaders' pay fuels distrust
3/10/2004
By DONN ESMONDE
It is amazing how well local politicians succeed when they put their minds to it.
The ill-timed, shameless attempt for mammoth raises by some county officials is an unmitigated triumph.
They have succeeded in feeding public distrust, deepening cynicism and further branding politics as a professional mud bath. Any incurable optimists out there still clinging to a belief in political ethics and purity had their fingers stomped.
If you missed it, a politically appointed committee last week said the county executive, comptroller, sheriff and clerk deserve pay boosts of at least 35 percent. County legislators are in line for a nearly 25 percent raise.
County Executive Joel A. Giambra rode to re-election preaching a lower-taxes, cut-costs-through-consolidation mantra. If county lawmakers approve the raises, our county executive would - after a $36,006 raise - make $139,434. That's more (by 2002 figures) than the governors of all but five states.
The other three officials, who now make upwards of $79,000, would scrape by on $114,336. (Comptroller Nancy Naples took the high road, declining a raise this term.)
None of them needs to take a second job to make sure the lights stay on. If riling up the populace was part of the plan, it worked to perfection.
Granted, it has been a long time - eight years - between raises for these people. Still, the hefty chunk amounts to back filling at more than 4 percent a year. In the real world, most folks - those lucky enough to have jobs, anyway - are grateful for 2 percent annual pushes.
Worse than what the politicians want is how they went about getting it.
Giambra waited until just after Election Day to revive the salary panel, at the urging of Sheriff Patrick M. Gallivan and County Clerk David J. Swarts. The nine-member committee urging the increases was picked by Giambra and county lawmakers. The roll call included ex-politicians and a former county sheriff. The only surprise is the appointers didn't name any family members.
No matter how fair the committee tried to be, the deal looks as rigged as a carnival ring toss. You don't let the people in line for the lucre pick the panel.
"The process stinks," said Kevin Hardwick, a Canisius College political science professor, who said raise requests should be made in May of an election year. "And so does the size of the (proposed) raises."
The real problem isn't the panel members, who - for no pay - got dropped into the eye of a hurricane. The salary committee was established to give county legislators - who decide on the raises - some political cover. It's a thankless task, like agreeing to spar with Mike Tyson. The best you can hope for is to escape with your ears intact.
The "wait until after Election Day" raises ploy isn't new. It's taken directly from the state lawmakers' "Tactical Guide to Underhanded Weaseling" handbook - not on sale at your local bookstore. They pulled the postelection salary trick a few years ago, slipping themselves a 38 percent increase.
Most county legislators, who will decide on the raises - and who are in line for $10,000 increases - are duck-and-covering under the public backlash. Whether they don't want to take the political heat - likely - or are too ashamed to pocket a 25 percent raise for part-time work - unlikely - odds are the big-chunk raises are indigestible.
Idea: Cut the increases in half, phase them in over four years and give 2 percent cost-of-living raises after that. Politicians get paid, and the rest of us don't feel cheated.
It's a victory worth winning.
e-mail: desmonde@buffnews.com
The article in the Buffalo News
Each legisitlator who votes yes will be predominately displayed as a politican who rose the cost of living in WNY. I guess we'll have to work on a new speakupwny section.
Really want to fire up the mob?
Lets give every county employee the same percent raise so that every county worker will get the equivlant of four percent a year for the last eight years. If they got raises incorporate those figures so it still equals four percent a year.
What is good for the goose......
"If you want to know what God thinks of money just look at the people he gave it to."
By the way, what happened to biker? I miss the old coot.
I would say fair is fair even though we can't afford it.
I would rather cook the giambra.. opps goose
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