Public job day of reckoning?

Home > Middleboro > Public job day of reckoning?

January 28th, 2010 bumpkin Leave a comment Go to comments

I got this email today with a link to a real eye-opener opinion piece in the Boston Globe that looks at public jobs, pay, and benefits. The email said:

A Day of Reckoning is coming, and none too soon…..The election of Scott Brown is a wake-up call to all in government from FED to local level.
.
Sorry to say, but the party is over for those who take “lifetime everything” from the taxpayers, and don’t care that it hurts the majority…..If this is a side-effect of our record breaking economic down-turn, then it is a welcomed one as this “screw-the-taxpayer-I got-mine” attitude is a cancer on our towns & state.
.
To Our public employees – Cash the checks, take the fat pension benefits & know that every dollar you take away in “unused sick day pay” and other over the top perks hurts someone in our towns who needs better services, roads, schools and other vital town services. Money is the goal, right? Who cares if that means someone else has to do without?? YOU got yours, and that’s all that really matters…

The main point of the article is that government employees are riding out the recession in fine style:

All the while, the federal government has been adding jobs at a 10,000-a-month clip. Between December 2007 and June 2009, federal payrolls exploded by nearly 10 percent. “Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time in pay and hiring,’’ USA Today observes, “during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.’’ And to add public-sector insult to private-sector injury, data from the Office of Personnel Management show the average federal salary is now roughly $71,000 – about 76 percent higher than the average private salary.
.
“Unlike most private-sector workers, whose retirement is driven by the strength of the stock market and 401(k) plans, government employees’ pensions are guaranteed.’’
.
Moreover, government retirees in Ohio enjoy taxpayer-provided health care, and in many cases can retire at 48.

I’ve always felt that pay for government employees is out of control and benefits are way out of line with the private sector. It’s no wonder that towns, states, and the federal government are constantly in budget crisis. Here in Middleboro, we’re supposed to applaud a level-funded budget with “level funded” being defined as more than last year to account for contractual pay increases and increased costs for benefits.
.
This is pure crazy and leads to things like the Middleboro casino hail-Mary play to plug a budget that is unsustainable due to unrealistic pay and benefits.
.
So is a “day of reckoning” coming? Or just more of the same?

Categories: Middleboro Tags:

Comments (3) Trackbacks (1) Leave a comment Trackback

Gladys Kravitz

January 28th, 2010 at 08:56 | #1

Reply | Quote

Yes, the day of reckoning is coming – at least in Bridgewater. Years of town employees (and department supervisors) serving on the Board of Selectmen, non-existent economic development, residential over-development, power-plays, and myriad other abuses resulted in an edict by townspeople to form a committee to find a better form of government. The committee has an excellent website and our local TV station is currently offering a series of programs to educate voters on what a vote for change could mean to our town. This Spring we’ll be voting on it. I’ll be there.
bumpkin

January 28th, 2010 at 12:37 | #2

Reply | Quote

Gladys, all those committees to improve government and public education on TV is so… so… so. un-Middleboroish
Gladys Kravitz

January 28th, 2010 at 13:02 | #3

Reply | Quote

It was very un-Bridgewaterish as well. There has been plenty of resistance. Just to approve the formation of the committee we had to sit through about 43 articles at a town meeting! Perhaps fed up M’boro voters could take a tip from our experience. There’s plenty of info on-line, and I think Barnstable already has the form of government we will be voting on.

http://www.bridgewatermatgsc.org/

http://www.bridgewatervoteyesonone.com/