I like how he makes more than the Lieutenant Governor

I'm not surprised. I've seen these kinds of antics before, where someone was hired into a job and immediately granted a pay increase over their predecessor.

A school board here hired the next superintendent after the old one retired and paid this new superintendent $20,000 more than the old one, even though the new guy had transitioned from being a classroom teacher for only a couple of years into management at the district level and worked his way up that way, had never been a department head or principal in the school-campus setting, and had never worked anywhere else besides this school district. Oh, and this is a 60,000+ enrollment school district.

Yeah, sure. This makes a lot of sense...

In a related topic, yesterday Massachusetts released a website that lets you look up every government worker, contractor, etc. and see how much they're paid, what their pension is, and so on. I figured it might be fun to use at the DMV (sorry, RMV here in MA) to look up the clerk you're waiting in line to see and share disparaging comments about their salary with your line mates, so I poked around.

If you search on RMV employees, it comes up blank.

Think of the talent that would have applied had they advertised the position at the actual salary.

I always read it as WTF-TV.

Fear the Clam: In a related topic, yesterday Massachusetts released a website that lets you look up every government worker, contractor, etc. and see how much they're paid, what their pension is, and so on. I figured it might be fun to use at the DMV (sorry, RMV here in MA) to look up the clerk you're waiting in line to see and share disparaging comments about their salary with your line mates, so I poked around.

If you search on RMV employees, it comes up blank.

===================

If the DMV in your state is "privatized"...like it is in some states... you won't be able to look up the salaries.

If he previously worked for Miami, why did they pay him $5000 to move from Iowa?

bhcompy: I like how he makes more than the Lieutenant Governor

In New Jersey, it's common for the Chiefs of Podunk towns with 20 man police departments to earn more than the governor.

I lived in a small town where the town council was always in crisis mode and raising taxes, but the local cops were making an average of $135K per year with benefits that would make a third world dictator envious.

the pay scale for government workers is crazy. In Minnesota (and probably in most other states), we're paying school superintendents in rural communities more than we pay the vice president of the United States! We pay the postmaster general twice what the president of the United States.

In most private businesses, NOBODY makes more than the owner or president of the company, and that pretty-much controls things.

Fissile: bhcompy: I like how he makes more than the Lieutenant Governor

In New Jersey, it's common for the Chiefs of Podunk towns with 20 man police departments to earn more than the governor.

I lived in a small town where the town council was always in crisis mode and raising taxes, but the local cops were making an average of $135K per year with benefits that would make a third world dictator envious.

HAHA, yea that is common practice in Florida too. There are Fire Chiefs (most relocated from NY / NJ) proposing "trip charges" for fire service now because they are "lacking funds", yet they make shiat loads of money per year, more than the Governor..... gotta love it!

TFA:
said Hawkins. "I've never been offered a job knowing going in what the job pays but said, 'You really want me? It's going to take more.'"

Seriously? It's called negotiated.

planes
the pay scale for government workers is crazy. In Minnesota (and probably in most other states), we're paying school superintendents in rural communities more than we pay the vice president of the United States! We pay the postmaster general twice what the president of the United States.

Given what business leaders make, the salaries of the President and VP of the United States are absurdly, ridiculously low. They'll make most of their money when they leave office. It's a poor comparison.

Fear the Clam: In a related topic, yesterday Massachusetts released a website that lets you look up every government worker, contractor, etc. and see how much they're paid, what their pension is, and so on. I figured it might be fun to use at the DMV (sorry, RMV here in MA) to look up the clerk you're waiting in line to see and share disparaging comments about their salary with your line mates, so I poked around.

If you search on RMV employees, it comes up blank.

Indiana used to have a dial-up BBS (1-800 number) that had all of this (and more). I once printed off the salaries of the top 3 people in our school + surrounding schools.

Then did a breakdown of how much that was per student. Even though we were the smallest school district our super made more than the surrounding districts some of which had 3x as many students.

What really ground my gears was the IT guy, a 300 lbs useless bastard, was making $70,000 a year. (And this was years ago). He always 'hired' the students that wanted to go into IT and they all did the busy work. Instead I just found free proxies online and taught everyone how to bypass the schools. (Or showed teachers how to get to the school's proxy without taking the required "class", 10.0.0.1!)

yeah, in this unemployment morass we're in and they agree to more money? thats why gov't people are stupid.

"first god invented idiots, that was for practice. then he invented school boards."

mark twain

darkscout: Fear the Clam: In a related topic, yesterday Massachusetts released a website that lets you look up every government worker, contractor, etc. and see how much they're paid, what their pension is, and so on. I figured it might be fun to use at the DMV (sorry, RMV here in MA) to look up the clerk you're waiting in line to see and share disparaging comments about their salary with your line mates, so I poked around.

If you search on RMV employees, it comes up blank.

Indiana used to have a dial-up BBS (1-800 number) that had all of this (and more). I once printed off the salaries of the top 3 people in our school + surrounding schools.

Then did a breakdown of how much that was per student. Even though we were the smallest school district our super made more than the surrounding districts some of which had 3x as many students.

What really ground my gears was the IT guy, a 300 lbs useless bastard, was making $70,000 a year. (And this was years ago). He always 'hired' the students that wanted to go into IT and they all did the busy work. Instead I just found free proxies online and taught everyone how to bypass the schools. (Or showed teachers how to get to the school's proxy without taking the required "class", 10.0.0.1!)

Dude, most IT admins don't leave their desk. It's all done remotely. I admin my servers, my workstations, and e-mail almost entirely by remoteware. If I have to physically get up, it's because the machine is farked. So, while it may not look like I'm doing anything while I sit at my desk and stare at my screen, in reality, I am usually connected to at least two workstations, our AD server, and our web filter server.

When we had kid s helping with IT tasks, it was the most mundane, simple things like workstation imaging or swapping a hard disk and they got graded on it by a teacher for a grade. I'm actually glad we stopped doing it this year because I was sick of having to constantly fix what they messed up.

/Don't make nearly that much, either.

Funny how management always finds ways to give themselves a raise while the "underlings" suffer.

I'm okay with being ignorant to what management makes. It would just infuriate me if I found out that some "dead weight" was making triple to my take home.

SDRR: Fissile: bhcompy: I like how he makes more than the Lieutenant Governor

In New Jersey, it's common for the Chiefs of Podunk towns with 20 man police departments to earn more than the governor.

I lived in a small town where the town council was always in crisis mode and raising taxes, but the local cops were making an average of $135K per year with benefits that would make a third world dictator envious.

HAHA, yea that is common practice in Florida too. There are Fire Chiefs (most relocated from NY / NJ) proposing "trip charges" for fire service now because they are "lacking funds", yet they make shiat loads of money per year, more than the Governor..... gotta love it!

===================

Most of those relocated NY/NJ cops and fire are collecting pensions out of Jersey while they are working those jobs in Florida. I know NJ cops/firemen who retired in their 40's with six figure pensions. Let's say he's getting $90K pension out of Jersey and making another $100K in Florida. That's almost $200K per year plus the benefits he's getting out of Jersey. I know a married couple, both Ph.D's, who don't make anywhere near $200k combined, while most of those ex-Jersey cops/fire are GED's.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves: I always read it as WTF-TV.

So much this.

FunkyBlue: Dude, most IT admins don't leave their desk. It's all done remotely. I admin my servers, my workstations, and e-mail almost entirely by remoteware. If I have to physically get up, it's because the machine is farked. So, while it may not look like I'm doing anything while I sit at my desk and stare at my screen, in reality, I am usually connected to at least two workstations, our AD server, and our web filter server.

Then he should have immediately recognized that there was a ton of traffic going through an external proxy server. Hell, all external traffic should have been blocked and forced through the proxy server. This was '99-'00. I'm trying to remember but I think the machines were '98 with a Novell login.

The machines should have been locked. There's no way I should have been able to install a key logger on every single machine in the library that sent automated e-mails with the results*. (Yes. I was a trouble maker in HS). And the default login & password for everyone in the school should not have been able to be found on the student ID.

I had friends that worked 'for' him and they were quite knowledgeable (as were most kids that grew up with computers). Thing was he used to be a shop teacher, went back and got a few certificates and tada "IT Guy." Trust me when I say he was an idiot.

/Although I did get a teacher fired that was banging numerous students. An "anonymous" package with all the e-mail correspondance with one student got sent to her, the principal and the school board.

darkscout: FunkyBlue: Dude, most IT admins don't leave their desk. It's all done remotely. I admin my servers, my workstations, and e-mail almost entirely by remoteware. If I have to physically get up, it's because the machine is farked. So, while it may not look like I'm doing anything while I sit at my desk and stare at my screen, in reality, I am usually connected to at least two workstations, our AD server, and our web filter server.

Then he should have immediately recognized that there was a ton of traffic going through an external proxy server. Hell, all external traffic should have been blocked and forced through the proxy server. This was '99-'00. I'm trying to remember but I think the machines were '98 with a Novell login.

The machines should have been locked. There's no way I should have been able to install a key logger on every single machine in the library that sent automated e-mails with the results*. (Yes. I was a trouble maker in HS). And the default login & password for everyone in the school should not have been able to be found on the student ID.

I had friends that worked 'for' him and they were quite knowledgeable (as were most kids that grew up with computers). Thing was he used to be a shop teacher, went back and got a few certificates and tada "IT Guy." Trust me when I say he was an idiot.

/Although I did get a teacher fired that was banging numerous students. An "anonymous" package with all the e-mail correspondance with one student got sent to her, the principal and the school board.

I had a similar experience when I was in high school...only I was too much of a pussy to be a trouble maker. I was a goodie-two-shoes that was taking a Intro To Programming class offered in VB6. Good times. Anyway, we had a Novell network (this Spring of '99) with networked drives. Long story short, the network admin set everyone up as administrators. Yes. Seriously.

All I did was share my network drive with everyone in the district. The reason I did this was so I could access my projects from the library because I was so much of a nerd; I wanted to work on them at lunch. I did this all quarter and then, bam, I get pulled down to the principals office and basically accused of being a witch. On my long list of 'horrible' things was me using a Win32API call in a VB6 application to change my screens resolution to 1024x768. Hell, I even changed it back before I logged off. The principal thought that I was able to 'see hidden parts of the screen' with my 'hack'.

It was a giant mess - for reasons I still don't full understand. I'm guessing *someone* did something malicious and they saw my shared drive and figured, 'It was probably him'. Again, I was an A+ student in that class; until I got called down to the office. They actually made me promise to NEVER touch a computer in the high school again. Seriously. I was only a sophomore. Two years later, I was still unable to type up an English paper when the class would go down to the lab. There were even talks of expelling me. The superintendents were involved. It was a nightmare.

Funny thing about it was; nobody seemed to question why the IT guy who made over six figures, setup the network in such a way that an untrained, inexperienced, perfectly average, 15 year old boy could effortless bipass his security. Nobody. Not even once. Considered that maybe he was incompetent.

There's only one reason that a government gives a contract or job to the highest bidder and that is for the kickbacks. I'm guessing he's kicking back more than the $30,000 signing bonus back to his bosses and that's why he was hired, especially since his pay is more than the lieutenant governor's. He might have even come up with the raise idea after the regular kickbacks were agreed on.

I lived in Detroit and the city had a contract for fuel for the bus system. The buses could have pulled up to any diesel pump in town and filled up for about 30% less than they were paying on the contract prices.

Fissile: Most of those relocated NY/NJ cops and fire are collecting pensions out of Jersey while they are working those jobs in Florida. I know NJ cops/firemen who retired in their 40's with six figure pensions. Let's say he's getting $90K pension out of Jersey and making another $100K in Florida. That's almost $200K per year plus the benefits he's getting out of Jersey. I know a married couple, both Ph.D's, who don't make anywhere near $200k combined, while most of those ex-Jersey cops/fire are GED's.

There is nothing wrong with "double-dipping". They took a job that said "we'll pay you X and then if you work it for Y years we'll give this pension". So they work Y years, earn that pension (and while you may feel they are overpaid, there are plenty of people I feel are overpaid, but I don't retroactively take what they earned; just because the payments haven't been made yet doesn't mean we should be paying them less than they signed up to work for), and quit the job. Then they take stock of themselves, see that they have skills and value, and offer to work for another department. The other department, in an entirely separate transaction, looks at this potential worker and his skills and says "we can get X years out of this guy and his skills without paying training costs and dealing with years' worth of a less experienced employee, so he is worth hiring". then they hire him.

If you took away the ability of someone to retire and be rehired by the government, you would only hurt the institution. That firefighter/cop/whatever would still retire at the sweet-spot pension-wise, and then work in the private industry. Then the institution wouldn't be able to hire a trained officer, and small fire departments and police departments around the country would be throwing a shiat-load of money into training costs.

Now, you can say, well lets get rid of cop/firefighter pensions, and that would stop it. Well, it MIGHT stop it. The small towns would still need to hire someone, and if they wanted to poach someone from a larger town, they'd likely have to pay even more to get them than they do to get a 'double-dipper'. The large towns would have to offer more salary to replace the pension (or have the overall quality of the employee go down correspondingly with the pay cut the position would take).

As for your examples, you compared an outlier for a firefighter to an outlier for people with PHds. You can't compare high-end to low-end like that and expect to be taken seriously. I will say that there is the appearance of an issue with the pensions of people in expensive cities. You have to pay them a lot because its expensive to live there (compare a bartender in pontiac michigan to a bartender in new york and see who earns more), and then if they take their pension and retire elsewhere the pension looks huge. But isn't this something that applies to all big-city workers and their salaries? The alternative would be not paying any city worker enough to ever retire in the city. To force them all to retire in nebraska. This would of course mean paying them well below the standard pay for the city relative to private market, which brings us back to getting what you pay for, and getting really really shiatty workers.

Smackledorfer: Fissile: Most of those relocated NY/NJ cops and fire are collecting pensions out of Jersey while they are working those jobs in Florida. I know NJ cops/firemen who retired in their 40's with six figure pensions. Let's say he's getting $90K pension out of Jersey and making another $100K in Florida. That's almost $200K per year plus the benefits he's getting out of Jersey. I know a married couple, both Ph.D's, who don't make anywhere near $200k combined, while most of those ex-Jersey cops/fire are GED's.

There is nothing wrong with "double-dipping". They took a job that said "we'll pay you X and then if you work it for Y years we'll give this pension". So they work Y years, earn that pension (and while you may feel they are overpaid, there are plenty of people I feel are overpaid, but I don't retroactively take what they earned; just because the payments haven't been made yet doesn't mean we should be paying them less than they signed up to work for), and quit the job. Then they take stock of themselves, see that they have skills and value, and offer to work for another department. The other department, in an entirely separate transaction, looks at this potential worker and his skills and says "we can get X years out of this guy and his skills without paying training costs and dealing with years' worth of a less experienced employee, so he is worth hiring". then they hire him.

If you took away the ability of someone to retire and be rehired by the government, you would only hurt the institution. That firefighter/cop/whatever would still retire at the sweet-spot pension-wise, and then work in the private industry. Then the institution wouldn't be able to hire a trained officer, and small fire departments and police departments around the country would be throwing a shiat-load of money into training costs.

Now, you can say, well lets get rid of cop/firefighter pensions, and that would stop it. Well, it MIGHT stop it. The small towns would still need to hire someone, and if they wanted to poach someone from a larger town, they'd likely have to pay even more to get them than they do to get a 'double-dipper'. The large towns would have to offer more salary to replace the pension (or have the overall quality of the employee go down correspondingly with the pay cut the position would take).

As for your examples, you compared an outlier for a firefighter to an outlier for people with PHds. You can't compare high-end to low-end like that and expect to be taken seriously. I will say that there is the appearance of an issue with the pensions of people in expensive cities. You have to pay them a lot because its expensive to live there (compare a bartender in pontiac michigan to a bartender in new york and see who earns more), and then if they take their pension and retire elsewhere the pension looks huge. But isn't this something that applies to all big-city workers and their salaries? The alternative would be not paying any city worker enough to ever retire in the city. To force them all to retire in nebraska. This would of course mean paying them well below the standard pay for the city relative to private market, which brings us back to getting what you pay for, and getting really really shiatty workers.

=================

Do you get paid a lot as a cop union rep? Rhetorical question, of course you get paid a lot as a cop union rep.

Do you know why the cost of living is so high in places like Jersey? Because of the high property taxes. Do you know why the property taxes as so high? Because cops and teachers are being paid like doctors and lawyers.

Let's sum up: The cops and teachers need to be paid like Kings and Queens because of high cost of living. The high cost of living is the result of the high salaries being paid to cops and teachers. Hmmm, I wonder what could be the problem here?

Fissile: Do you get paid a lot as a cop union rep? Rhetorical question, of course you get paid a lot as a cop union rep.

Yea, attack me, not the words I said, that makes sense.

Fissile: Do you know why the cost of living is so high in places like Jersey? Because of the high property taxes. Do you know why the property taxes as so high? Because cops and teachers are being paid like doctors and lawyers.

Yea, the entire cost of living in big cities is 100% the fault of cops and teachers. That is a ridiculous statement.

You also ignored the point of my post, which was not a justification for the initial pay scale of any given employee, merely that the biatching about "double-dipping" is misplaced. It isn't their ability to retire and get a new job that causes problems. The area hiring them is making a sound decision to hire the retired, and trained and experienced, worker. If you want to complain about whether the area training and hiring them for 20-25 years is getting their money's worth, that is another matter entirely, and should not be considered directly connected to their being hired elsewhere after retirement.

To put it bluntly, two financial decisions are being made by two separate government institutions. Now, if you can point out that a single hiring institution has a trend retiring its own workers (or that two different cities' departments are retiring and exchanging workers) and rehiring them, that is a different matter entirely. It is rarely the case that the same township that finds it financially preferable to higher trained, experienced employees is also doing the training. It is generally one or the other.

Whether you think cops, teachers, or firefighters should be peons at the lowest level of society is another discussion altogether, and if you want to whine up a storm about that, you are welcome to do it. That is a value judgement for you to make and complain about on your own, and has nothing to do with double dipping, which I was addressing.

Both my grandparent's retired and took second jobs. Neither worked for the government. ZOMG private industry double-dips!

Smackledorfer: Fissile: Do you get paid a lot as a cop union rep? Rhetorical question, of course you get paid a lot as a cop union rep.

Yea, attack me, not the words I said, that makes sense.

Fissile: Do you know why the cost of living is so high in places like Jersey? Because of the high property taxes. Do you know why the property taxes as so high? Because cops and teachers are being paid like doctors and lawyers.

Yea, the entire cost of living in big cities is 100% the fault of cops and teachers. That is a ridiculous statement.

You also ignored the point of my post, which was not a justification for the initial pay scale of any given employee, merely that the biatching about "double-dipping" is misplaced. It isn't their ability to retire and get a new job that causes problems. The area hiring them is making a sound decision to hire the retired, and trained and experienced, worker. If you want to complain about whether the area training and hiring them for 20-25 years is getting their money's worth, that is another matter entirely, and should not be considered directly connected to their being hired elsewhere after retirement.

To put it bluntly, two financial decisions are being made by two separate government institutions. Now, if you can point out that a single hiring institution has a trend retiring its own workers (or that two different cities' departments are retiring and exchanging workers) and rehiring them, that is a different matter entirely. It is rarely the case that the same township that finds it financially preferable to higher trained, experienced employees is also doing the training. It is generally one or the other.

Whether you think cops, teachers, or firefighters should be peons at the lowest level of society is another discussion altogether, and if you want to whine up a storm about that, you are welcome to do it. That is a value judgement for you to make and complain about on your own, and has nothing to do with double dipping, which I was addressing.

Both my grandparent's retired and took second jobs. Neither worked for the government. ZOMG private industry double-dips!

=============

Average teacher salary in Bergen County, NJ: $71K per year (for 180 days of work)

Average cop salary in Bergen County, NJ: $104K per year.

Let's not even get started on their benefits, pensions and other perks.


No, that's not why my property taxes are out of control. No, that can't be it. It's probably....um....let me think...oh yeah, illegal aliens. It the illegal aliens who are mowing the lawns of all those cops and teachers who are to blame. Thanks for getting me into critical thinking mode, I could never have figured it out without your encouragement.

"I struggle with what he's asking for compared to what the job is advertised at," said Hawkins. "I've never been offered a job knowing going in what the job pays but said, 'You really want me? It's going to take more.'"

I'm trying to see the problem with this. I demanded a significantly higher salary than was offered for a position once and I got what I wanted. At another job, I requested a larger raise after my annual performance review because the economy was just starting to tank and I knew we wouldn't get a raise the following year (assuming we still had jobs). "Well, you're already at the top of the salary range for your position." "Then you need to adjust the salary range." I also explained that providing the same raise across the board was a kick in the teeth to people who had outstanding performance reviews. What was the point of busting my ass when I could get the same compensation by staying one step ahead of the axe? By the end of the day, my raise had been nearly tripled, much to the surprise of the VeeP who took my request upstairs. And, as I guessed, nobody got raises the next year. And I didn't gripe at all about our small raises the year after that because it was amazing to still have a job, let alone get a raise.

So I don't have any problem at all with someone demanding to be paid what they feel their worth. If the county commissioners didn't think he was worth that much, they shouldn't have voted to increase compensation for the position. And they may well pay for it with their own jobs in the next election.

Fissile: (for 180 days of work)

Bet you think they only work the hours of their classes too! Better tune into fox news and get an update on which member of the middle class to blame for the state of our country. It couldn't be the millionaires, its those farkers living high on the hog making 60k+ for sure.

I see you opted to continue arguing something that I wasn't though.

bhcompy: I like how he makes more than the Lieutenant Governor

Only in salary. I bet he doesn't take home NEARLY as much in under-the-table bribes and kickbacks, though.