Making Public Salaries Sane

Recently, public employee salaries and benefits, – especially those paid to school administrators – have become the subject of some little public notice. Leaving aside the obvious outrages of $700,000 buyouts, we find that even the more typical salaries suffice to raise eyebrows. Salaries of more than $200,000 are the norm; salaries in excess of $300,00 are becoming increasingly common. Making a quarter mil, and more, at the taxpayers’ expense seems more than a tad excessive, especially considering the pay for other high-level governmental officials.

Think about the judiciary. Pursuant to our Constitution, a lawyer (obviously possessing a doctorate) may, after ten years admission to the bar, be appointed to the Superior Court of New Jersey. Some of these men and women hail from areas of the law in which salaries of $500K and up are not uncommon. The pay for a trial court Judge? $157,000; there is no shortage of competent applicants. And while judicial pay should be sufficient to attract exemplary lawyers to the bench, it will never – and should never – approach what these talented attorneys earn in the marketplace.

Because public service requires sacrifice. One wishing to earn that which he might command in the private sector should stay there. By definition, public service requires one to subordinate one’s own economic interests to those of the public. People unwilling to make that sacrifice should find another line of work.

The salary of our Governor? $175,000. For a cabinet official? $141,000. Dare anyone assert that the School Superintendent in Newark (or of anyone of the more than 600 other school districts) does a job more important than that of the Governor, or that he/she should be paid more than twice as much as a Cabinet official?

Well, perhaps. It might well be that (say) school superintendents possess skills which the market rewards accordingly. So, compare apples to apples, and contrast what NJ Administrators make to what their counterparts in nearby PA counties earn.

Consider Lehigh County, PA, in which the following salaries prevail: Allentown: $150,800; Catasauqua: $123,900; East Penn: $156,000; Northern Lehigh: $109,000; Parkland: $147,000; Salisbury: $125,000. Southern Lehigh: $131,000; Whitehall: $115,000. In Northampton County, the salaries range from $161,000 down to $116,000.

Now, PA may offer a lower cost of living, but these Superintendents are making HALF what their NJ counterparts make. And there are eight districts in one county, nine in the other, compared to more than 40 in Morris County alone.

And size, apparently, doesn’t matter. The School Superintendent in NY makes $250,000, $70K or so less per year than we’re paying the Super in Newark (and on par with what our local Administrators make). NYC enrolls a million students and employs 691,000 teachers. The Newark school system educates (?) approximately 42,000 students with about 7,500 employees, and our local districts are often 1/100th that size.

But we pay our folks (often substantially) more.

Something is very wrong with this picture.

If we wish to bring taxes – especially property taxes – down to reasonable levels, public employee compensation and benefits must be our single greatest focus.  Because, to paraphrase Willie Sutton, that's where the money is, and the taxpayers are being robbed blind.

Presumably, the responsibilities of a PA superintendent closely correspond to those of their NJ counterparts. There is simply no excuse for paying NJ Administrators twice what they might earn in PA.

We should remember that no one should ever wax rich at taxpayer expense. (And $300K per annum damn near qualifies)  Public service, by definition, requires sacrifice. Cabinet officials, judges, and – yes – legislators, could all make substantially more if they devoted their often considerable talents to the private sector. But they understand the necessity of subordinating private gain to public service. Why should school teachers, administrators, public college presidents – or even football coaches – be any different?

Time was when public employees were substantially "underpaid", vis a vis what they could earn in the private sector, and, in some county and local offices, such is still the case. But no one choosing to serve the public possesses the slightest right to whine about low compensation. Folks wishing to make what they could in the private sector should take their services to the highest private bidder. Public service is as much a calling as a career; one should not enter any public service for the money. One should not starve, but one should expect to sacrifice. Such is the nature of the undertaking. Working for the people requires, to a significant degree, that service be its own reward. No one – but no one – is worth $250K plus in taxpayer dollars (today). People wanting that kind of money should find another line of work.  I GUARANTEE that we would encounter not the slightest difficulty finding capable replacements for those folks unwilling to work for what the Governor makes. 

Legislation to limit the compensation of local, county, and state employees to that which the Governor makes would go a long way to correcting this obvious injustice. It’s simply not possible to assert that any public job is more important than that of the guy who runs the whole enchilada. If one can run an entire state, with 9,000,000 people, for $175,000, and never be short of people who want the job, administering a school district with a few hundred kids and a few dozen employees should command no more.