Should Public Servants be Compensated?
Local and state governments across the country are going through difficult times. One need only spend a few minutes glancing at the daily newspaper or viewing the lead stories on the evening news to get a sense of the budget crunch. An issue that has recently surfaced is that of compensation for local elected officials. This week, one of the local news stations in Tulsa aired a report which mentioned that six of our nine city councilors would voluntarily give up 5.2% of their $18,000 per year salary due to the frailty of the city budget. The mayor has offered to take a pay cut of 8.6%. However, two councilors indicated they will not take a pay cut while one is undecided.
During the report, viewer comments concerning councilor pay cuts were aired and they were not favorable toward the councilors who indicated they would prefer to remain at their present rate of pay. While I didn’t record the comments verbatim, many of them were along these lines: Councilors shouldn’t be compensated at all. Councilors are public servants and should therefore work for free.
On the surface, that sentiment definitely resonates. After all, we want local elected officials who are in the position for the right reasons. We want our representatives in the halls of government to serve the public interest. However, let’s step back a moment. Think about the kinds of people that you want representing your interests at all levels of government. Do you only want people who are independently wealthy to be able to run for office? Do you only want those with trust funds to serve or do you want laborers, nurses, small business owners, corporate workers, etc. to be able to serve?
Many of our founding fathers believed in the idea of citizen legislators. In other words, they believed that the best government comes from those who have to live under the very rules they make. As it is right now, most local elected officials don’t just attend a meeting or two and call it a week. They attend board and commission meetings in addition to various neighborhood and political meetings. They meet at all hours of the day and in the evenings as well. In other words, they put in a great deal of time into public service in addition to the time they spend at their regular jobs. They deserve to be compensated for that time. My economics professor in college used to tell me, “A worker is worthy of his hire.” I believe that phrase fits in this situation. Just because someone is a public servant, that doesn’t mean they should give away the time, energy, and effort they bring to their jobs.
I admire the councilors and the mayor who voluntarily decided to cut their collective salaries (although, ultimately, it will make a negligible impact on the city budget). In times of cost cutting, it is good for everyone to share in the pain. However, the councilors who declined the pay decrease aren’t necessarily wrong and their views shouldn’t be construed as such, especially when any action by government can be taken as precedent. In the future, I want to see local elected officials come from all walks of life, not just the privileged few who have the wherewithal and the free time to take such positions.
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Perhaps they should be paid a percentage of their annual budget surplus… Similar to sales people being a paid a commission based on their performance. If you run a budget deficit, you don’t get paid, and neither does your staff.
Good post. I think the other issue to consider is that if we paid our public servants nothing, then only the wealthy could afford to serve. I don’t think that benefits our towns, states, or country at all either.
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Hi Trait,
I appreciate that a man of your youth is willing to sacrifice your time defending the things in which I believe and for which I have fought — along side friends who died for them.
So I mean this advice to toughen, not offend you.
You are toying with the Obama disease of phrasing your arguments around your-self and you readers’ egos e.g. “I want ..” and “Do you want …?”. I wish you’d stick with the ideas that are the foundation of our belief in America as its founders defined it in the Declaration. In this case: It’s as un-American to ask anyone to work for free (i.e. to take their most valuable property – time – without compensation) as it is for public servants to be allowed to form groups of sufficient power to extort higher than market value pay for what they do … because the government’s unlimited power denies us public members the right to go elsewhere for the serviced they monopolize.
The other idea I hope you consider is “A sign of high intelligence is the ability to see distinctions among superficially similar things: That is why to the ignorant bigot – ‘They all look alike’”.
In this case there is a material difference between these two “Public Servants” 1) A person elected to public office, and 2) a person who is awarded a civil servant job. With that distinction made I think a profitable debate could be held around these assertions:
1. Because of the unilateral power that goes with elected office, it is appropriate to follow George Washington’s lead and just reimburse expenses of all activities directly related to the duties of their office (and maybe some multiple of the minimum wage).
2. Because those in civil service jobs exist in a monopoly, it is wrong to permit such works to negotiate as a power block. That’s because there is no check or balance against that power when the employees know their captive customers can’t move to a competing business to make their jobs unneeded.
Grin … may I also suggest you reconsider your use of the forum you control. Lecturing you readers on what you want and you think and you believe is well … boring and boorish. You might assemble a larger and more powerful group by challenging them with your ideas … and accepting their challenges in return. I.e. Seek to forge agreement by a large number of readers on a course of action or solution … instead of endlessly belaboring them with your opinion of what’s wrong.
Good luck, and God bless.
George
If their position is a full time job, they should be compensated. However, in many small towns, the positions are part time, sometimes only a few hours a week. Those jurisdictions should consider making the mayor and council positions into a true “public service” positions.
As for Congress, we should consider term limits, and reducing or eliminating their pensions. Congress should not be the realm of “professional politicians”, but rather a position that is temporarily held by someone who wishes to serve, not rule.
Civil servants cannot serve if they are low income, self employed or poor unless they can recoup expenses such as gas,out of town expenses, some meals and office costs like copying, ink, etc.
If one considers an elected position to be a job then by all means compensate them as you would a regular employee.
But the question needs to be asked and the answer studied as to why the elected position has become a job.
An elected position is always a service and therefore should not be acknowledged as a contract for hire with pay.
Currently, the elected positions in most levels of government have become bloated with duties and tasks. Most of these duties and tasks, while probably necessary to some, are unnecessary to the majority. Let the majority decide within lower level municipalities that affect less of the population.
To return elected positions to an understanding of service we must begin to reclaim duties and tasks from those governments and place them upon smaller levels of governments like villages, townships, and possibly cities. We must start creating municipalities within our counties.
I disagree that only rich elites will run for office. If the positions are stripped of their unnecessary power and their salaries are reduced then there will be no need for anyone to see them as a “full-time” job that needs compensation.
Hi All,
I think this post convinced me that pay is the wrong place to look for a solution to the problem of too many politicians and too few stateswomen and men in elected office.
I agree with Amy, but would restate her argument in different terms to avoid being suckered into the liberal trap of explaining everything in terms of class warfare based on “haves” – wealthy — and “have nots” – poor.
I’d argue instead that no one I consider intelligent and rational enough to trust holding the reins to government’s unlimited power – or even anyone with the intelligence and skill to just get elected — would give away her or his time (which at my age, I know means giving away my life) for free.
So if there is no pay, or inadequate pay, the only compensation left with which to attract competent people is Power. So only those people for whom power is more important than money will seek elected office. And in the context of my prior caution against class warfare, such people are not always just the rich. It also includes people who are so fanatically committed to one ideology or another – and the need to enforce it on others – they don’t care about compensation (at least until they taste the power they seek). Older readers will remember Ralph Nader and is $50 dollar suits and short socks.
Plus, it seems simply un-American to ask anyone to surrender their most precious asset time (meaning life) without just compensation.
To me all that means what we really need are term limits to greatly diminish the power an elected office offers to its holders – especially in Congress where “seniority” determines who gets on the committees that hand out the biggest spoils.
No … America’s founders didn’t ignore term limits because they considered them and rejected them for good reason. It’s just that back then either disability of death was guaranteed to remove people from office shortly after 60, so it didn’t occur to America’s founders that other limits were needed. They never imagined that someday those in Congress would move in and stay for 50 years (e.g. Hawaii’s Sen. Inouye entered the Senate in 1963 – and deemed a shoe-in in the next election), i.e. stay in power longer than the entire adult life of most men back then.
America’s founders would also roll over in their graves if they knew the “Limited” government they worked so hard to limit [and keep permanently free from the Tyranny of the Masses (simple majority rule)] would ever be able to take such a huge a percentage of its citizens’ earnings for redistribution to friends. I.e. that being elected to office would ever carry the power of say the Louisiana Congressional representative to extort $100 million for their vote or that Alaska Senator’s “Bridge to Nowhere” just because he could.
America needs term limits, to limit the power of elected office, to defend America against the eternal truth that “Power corrupts: Absolute Power corrupts absolutely”.
GLB
I get paid $3,000 per year to serve on the local School Board. That works out to *almost* minimum wage for the time I spend.
Is it important enough for me to do it for free if I had to? Yes.
Do I deserve to be paid something for my time? I think so.
Is $3000 going to be a make-or-break decision for someone deciding whether to run for office? I don’t think so, but asking someone to spend money on campaigning and time away from their family for free is unreasonable.
We take tax money and pay teachers who pay unions who elect leaders to work against us. They get paid, why shouldn’t the representatives of the taxpayers?
Great post.
Police officers are public servants, should they work for free? I know that there are volunteer fire departments, but should all firefighters work for free? Our soldiers, sailors and airmen are public servants, they protect our republic and enforce the values and interests of our nation, should they work for free? I agree with others who believe that it is against American principles to reward hard work and honorable public service with…nothing. Each person has a resource, time, and it is a form of capital. Our nation was built on the belief that exercising our personal capital should be profitable for others and ourselves. And, although not everyone will agree with me, I believe that we don’t pay our public political employees in leadership roles enough to attract the kind of leadership that we desire. In some cases, a business owner with a few hundred employees makes more than the Chief of the Executive Branch of the United States Government. I am not suggesting that an acceptable primary motive for public service is financial gain. But, I am suggesting that meaningful campaign finance reform should include a salary or compensation that does not make campaign contributions the real financial incentive and compensation for leadership positions in higher public offices. Let’s pay for real leadership and hold them accountable to the contract of employment that does not allow them to receive contributions or be influenced by the money of special interests – foreign or domestic.