EDITOR NOTE–Is this “mercenary” money, freelance pay, or just overtime? It would seem that if these people are working for the public it is public taxes paying their big bucks. Whether it is city or Fed money it all comes from the working folks.

The jobs to have are FEDERAL jobs! You get a good salary, lots of paid holidays, an awesome benefits package, pension, etc., etc. PLUS – you know you’ll get paid because when they run out of cash, they just print more! (Is this a great country, or WHAT?!!)

“Winning!” – Charlie Sheen

(Yeah, I’m sorta feeling a sense of defeat. I can’t see anything changing, until the house of cards comes tumbling down.)

While it is not exactly the same as this current topic, it is very much related. Government compensation, all forms, must be reviewed for savings to the taxpayer. Public services must be cut to ensure we do not undermine our nations economic future.

Mind you this whole concept has to start at the local level. I urge all of you to really study the levy rates on your property tax bill. No matter what county, there is a ton of local taxes weighing all of us down. I worked with one local agency in Ada county to reduce their levy; it was significantly more than other agencies providing the exact same services in different taxing districts county wide. When shown they were so far out of the norm, and with pressure, the commissioners reduced the levy. It can be done. We are being “nickled” and “dimed” by local taxes. Not to mention the state and federal agencies.

It is all related, we simply are paying too much for public services and workers. In our economic structure we all have to realize that we are only compensated at our current valuation. Not what we think we are valued at, or what we were paid, it is simply what the market will bear. Past contracts under different revenue streams are not “untouchable”. Revenue sources took a hit, therefore pay and benefits will take a hit. The current imbalance between revenue and payouts is unsustainable. Just a thought – two years later.

First of all, in a number of jobs you have to pay for experience. While we can all make disparaging remarks about bad public servants, there are many that are excellent employees and they have years of experience. Do we really want District Attorneys, Chiefs of Police, engineers, medical professionals and other professionals to be HS graduates? Is your doctor straight out of trade school? How about depending on that accountant that just passed Mr. Custer’s 10 grade math class. To a point, you get what you pay for. Most starting professionals START well about the $15/hour, and in some cases about $20/hour…and that is to start. But that also includes at least 4 years of college and in some cases professional certification.

I know many police officers that earn in excess of $60,000/year, but that includes hundreds of hours of overtime and self sacrifice. I would really like to see who is making in excess of $150k in any position in Canyon County. Come on Guardian – can you get us some more information??

EDITOR NOTE–We were merely sharing a report from the Idaho Press-Tribune. They billed the survey as the “Top Ten” earners in the 7 agencies.

I would like to start at the top and clean house down to the median household income of $47k noted in the census.gov data. Then we go on a fishing expedition to backfill all that administrative bloat with a market based approach for the new hires.