Stopping the Pay Raise
By Paul Jacob
It looks like citizens of Milwaukee, Wisconsin have a good chance of stopping a fat pay raise of the sort that politicians love to give themselves.
County Supervisor Jim Schmitt has been talking about raising the salaries of county supervisors by $5,000 a year. He says it’s needed to bring salaries in line with what other county officials make. Right now Milwaukee board members get more than $50,000 a year.
Enter a local government-accountability group, the Citizens for Responsible Government. CRG made the case that if all relevant factors are considered, the supervisors’ salaries are indeed comparable to that of officials in other counties. Indeed, CRG argues supervisors could do with a 40% cut in salaries.
Having heard from CRG and others, Schmitt says he’s now reconsidering his plans for the pay hike. At least he didn’t try to pull off this pay hike in secret, behind closed doors in the middle of the night, as Pennsylvania state legislators infamously tried to do not long ago.
It’s no surprise to see Citizens for Responsible Government jumping into the fray here. The group has track record defending fiscal common sense and property rights — and calling public officials to account. In 2002 they were behind the recall of Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament, caught trying to fatten his government pension. That’s the only recall CRG has filed themselves. But since then they’ve been very active in promoting other worthy recall efforts.
My kind of people.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
