Salaries of Elected Officials
I'm working on a piece about the Justices of the Peace that I'll post later this afternoon but in a recent article in the El Paso Times there was a quote that I wanted to talk about.
El Paso County HR Director Betsy Keller is quoted as being against a reduction in pay for elected officials because El Paso is already lower than the rest of the state.
Keller is 100% right.
First let's be real. You aren't going to provide meaningful tax relief to tax payers through salary cuts of elected officials. It's a symbolic gesture at best. And the gesture says more about acquiring quality candidates than it does about providing tax relief.
It's a crying shame that JP's make more money than County Commissioners. There's no way that should be happening.
Now there are a group of crazies out there that will say that county officials should cut their salaries because they don't deserve it or they don't do anything blah blah blah. That just shows their ignorance. Sure cutting electeds salary is the pandering move to make, but it doesn't help the constituent in the long run and is nothing more than empty symbolism.
If you have low wages for elected officials you create a big problem. The only people that are incentivized to run are people who are retired or independently wealthy. Those may or may not be the best pool of candidates available to run for office but it certainly eliminates people who want to make a career out of government service. Those experienced and degreed professionals we have in our community that haven't left for greener pastures yet choose to work in the private sector. That is a huge talent pool we are missing out on.
But the empty gesture that sounds good in a mailer doesn't help this community in the long run. It's yet another reason why other communities are better at producing quality leadership. We don't compete to keep our own talent.
Interestingly the conspiracy theorist nutball crazies that see something sinister even in a cup of coffee probably have no idea that most of the quality young leaders what we do have in place now took a hefty paycut to serve.
But that doesn't matter to the crazies. They want their empty symbolism.
And the crappy talent that is attracted to a position that doesn't pay well.
El Paso County HR Director Betsy Keller is quoted as being against a reduction in pay for elected officials because El Paso is already lower than the rest of the state.
Keller is 100% right.
First let's be real. You aren't going to provide meaningful tax relief to tax payers through salary cuts of elected officials. It's a symbolic gesture at best. And the gesture says more about acquiring quality candidates than it does about providing tax relief.
It's a crying shame that JP's make more money than County Commissioners. There's no way that should be happening.
Now there are a group of crazies out there that will say that county officials should cut their salaries because they don't deserve it or they don't do anything blah blah blah. That just shows their ignorance. Sure cutting electeds salary is the pandering move to make, but it doesn't help the constituent in the long run and is nothing more than empty symbolism.
If you have low wages for elected officials you create a big problem. The only people that are incentivized to run are people who are retired or independently wealthy. Those may or may not be the best pool of candidates available to run for office but it certainly eliminates people who want to make a career out of government service. Those experienced and degreed professionals we have in our community that haven't left for greener pastures yet choose to work in the private sector. That is a huge talent pool we are missing out on.
But the empty gesture that sounds good in a mailer doesn't help this community in the long run. It's yet another reason why other communities are better at producing quality leadership. We don't compete to keep our own talent.
Interestingly the conspiracy theorist nutball crazies that see something sinister even in a cup of coffee probably have no idea that most of the quality young leaders what we do have in place now took a hefty paycut to serve.
But that doesn't matter to the crazies. They want their empty symbolism.
And the crappy talent that is attracted to a position that doesn't pay well.
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