DiabloWags said:
dimitrig said:
TandemBear said:
Do you know WHY your city pays your City Manager that amount?
Don't think too hard, you might hurt yourself.
I'll explain. THE PRIVATE SECTOR. That's EXACTLY who is responsible for this high salary. Thanks to the private sector paying increasingly high top exec. salaries, the public sector has to match these to attract commensurate talent. Otherwise, you want your city run by incompetent people who don't have the skill set to do it?
I love how you cite "waste" but then COMPLETELY fail to see the causes. Wow, talk about clueless!
That said, I'm increasingly frustrated that our media and policy folks have not addressed this issue - that obscene top exec. pay is killing the public sector. But that's the reality of an open market for professionals at the moment. But you blame your city. Of COURSE you do! Classic complainer who can't even understand how the free market for professionals work.
That said, you completely failed to even address my post. Typical. Your intellectual dishonesty is impressive. You won't even take the time to listen to the segment. To try to see the issue. Doubt you've spent any time trying to wrap your head around the plight of working Americans. I'm sure they "should have made better life choices." Problem is, you can't expect the bottom 40% of your economic demographic to suddenly move to the top! Doesn't work that way. I'd suggest Nicholas Kristoph's "Tightrope" if you truly want to grasp a little understanding of what's going on.
Do you even have a clue as to the causes of homelessness? I'd expect the typical "They're drug addicts!" reply, which is hopelessly myopic and will NEVER actually address the true causes. Oh but free enterprise and reduced regulations sure helped the opiate and opioid crisis flourish. Thanks private sector for that!
"Otherwise, you want your city run by incompetent people who don't have the skill set to do it?"
We already have that in every city I have lived in or that I am familiar with. Most counties aren't any better. Maybe we aren't paying enough?
I'm shocked that someone like Tandem would BLAME the PRIVATE sector!
lol
Perhaps Tandem just doesnt have any real experience in the real world?
I guess he's oblivious to public sector pensions as well?
Does he have any clue how much these guys make
retired . . . Fire, Police, City/County Govt officials, etc.
Hence your point.
Perhaps Tandem might wish to peruse Transparent California to see how "lowly" paid our public servants are.
Transparent California
PS. I know of Alameda County Fire Captains that are making $434,000 all in.
Having represented public and private clients, I can tell you the executives at State public entries and private companies have different skill sets. The major talent drain for State governmental agencies (ignoring doctors and football ad basketball coaches) that build or operate things that provide services (e..g, think Water Districts such as the Metropolitan Water District, Sanitation Districts, College Presidents or senior administrators, Judges, investment advisors for CalSTERS and CalPERS who make millions, etc.) typically are consulting-type firms, and the salaries are not that out of line with they would get as private sector consultant, before benefits. And the public sector executives probably are paid more as head of the government organizations after you throw in benefits like pensions such as CalPERS.
And for you folks concerned about "income inequality", you will find looking at the distribution of salaries in CA State Agencies, that income distributions generally are as bad as in the private sector. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/the-psychology-of-inequality?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorkerWhere it gets a little more of a crapshoot is the local governmental area. I live in a small city (around 1,000 residents) that has to pay its General Manager something like $300K. Why? The City kept losing their City Manager to other California cities. I call that the marketplace. Some of that is your general manager has to be really sophisticated because of the demands placed on cities by the Federal and State governments on California cities. Some of it is that real estate is so costly, that battles of land use become litigious and expensive. But an argument can be made, the people that work as seniors executive in government have to be top notch at the upper levels, and they are paid accordingly, particularly given the cost of living in this State. But there is some more to that since some local governments, usually in low income area, are lousy payers.
That gets to rank and file types. According to the U.S. Census Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll, there were 1.6 million full-time state and local public employees in California with a total annualized payroll cost of $145.5 billion in March 2020 (right before C-19). About 16% of wage and salary workers are represented by unions in 2022,
With some areas is California and other states that unions impact incomes. Here is something the unions claim citing a UC Berkeley study:
"By bargaining together through unions, California workers increase their earnings by approximately $5,800 per worker annually, for a combined total of $18.5 billion." That is more than 10% of all wages -see above paragraph). from a group that represents just 16% of the salary and wage earners, which means the unions really has much dramatic impact on their employee's wages; obviously, way beyond union dues. "Union workers also have more access to health and retirement benefits."
https://www.seiu521.org/521-news/union-effect-in-california/. The unions also tout their ability to have its workers impact public policy. They have spent millions of dollars on various ballot measures, nearly always favoring the side of higher taxes and spending, because they personally benefit from expanded programs. It is rather obvious, public-sector unions are some of the State's most powerful special interest groups.
Public-sector executives and unions push for higher compensation and higher government spending with little restraint. They often don't care if the cost of government services goes up because the burden is borne by someone else, and they may have monopoly power as they are the sole provider of services, such as fire protection or sanitation, or if regulatory bodies, approvals. By contrast, some private-sector executives and certainly private sector unions are aware that higher costs for employers may result in lost sales and fewer jobs. Arguably the check and balance is voters and politicians who are on the budget side, and supposed to exercise restraint on salary demands. If salaries are too high and government costs too much, we voters are supposed to vote for people who will put in cost controls. And I suspect a lot of voters, including posters here, are just fine with paying high wages to government employees, because they want to attract better employees. But for a Democrat and even some Republicans (for example a lot of conservatives want more money for their local schools), the moneys behind the unions is too much. And its is just not a conservative versus liberal. For example, on policing, the police union may be able to break a very progressive candidate who want to move money away from law enforcement.
And with all that, can we really say boards of directors in private companies exercise that much restraint in reigning high executive salaries? Why should pay for pubic executives be that different?
