Californian taxpayers force resignations...We should follow

This is a perfect story of taxpayer revolt. We should force Hoboken to disclose compensations (total packages including benefits) and get the press on this. I guarantee you that Bell won't be the last town to force this sort of change.

Salary of $800,000 Sparks California Taxpayer Mutiny: Joe Mysak
2010-07-28 01:00:00.0 GMT

Commentary by Joe Mysak
July 28 (Bloomberg) -- The search is on for the next
$800,000-a-year city manager.
The taxpayers of Bell, California, a 2.5-square-mile city
just outside Los Angeles forced the resignations last week of
three public officials who made too much money.
The taxpayers were responding to a Los Angeles Times
article of July 15 that asked the question, “Is a City Manager
Worth $800,000?” I think we all know the answer.
The story reported that the city’s chief administrative
officer was on a salary of $787,637, his assistant $376,288, the
police chief $457,000. These paydays struck the Bell citizenry,
and many other Californians, as a bit bloated.
Ideas in public finance blow in from the West, an old
municipal market saying goes. If the watchdogs where you live
aren’t on the hunt for public officials making king-size
compensation, they soon will be.
People were already angry about the guaranteed pensions
that so many state and local employees get. It’s a surprise that
some civil servants also collect supersize salaries, which will
only spur even more populist backlash. Unlike the rage expressed
over banker bonuses, you can expect taxpayers to demand action.
This time, they can do something about it.

Salary, Security

The fury over banker bonuses was a short-lived phenomenon,
fueled by the taxpayer bailout of the nation’s financial system.
Americans respect high salaries in business rather than resent
them. After all, (in most cases) if business turns sour, or goes
bust, so do those salaries.
The dynamic is different when it comes to government.
Americans think that civil service makes up in security what it
lacks in pay, and for the most part they are fine with that. Now
they find out that only half of what they know is accurate. Yes,
governments don’t go out of business, and they fire workers only
as a last resort.
Americans are slowly being disabused of the idea that civil
servants make peanuts. This quaint notion dates from the 1960s.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports on its website that
total employer-compensation costs are $27.73 per hour in
business, $39.81 in state and local government.
Californians are on the cutting edge. For years now, they
have been treated to stories about how public pensions are going
to be the ruin of the state’s economy. Now they find out that
current government employees aren’t doing so badly in terms of
salary, either.

Choke On It

How much is too much? If Bell’s city manager made $250,000
a year, would it have made headlines? How about $300,000? I’m
not sure. I’m quite certain $400,000 would have raised eyebrows.
In his only statement to the press to date, the $787,637
man, Robert Rizzo, told the Los Angeles Times, “If that’s a
number people choke on, maybe I’m in the wrong business. I could
go into private business and make that money. This council has
compensated me for the job I’ve done.”
Well, that may not be so.
“There are darned few $787,000 salaried positions anywhere
in the private sector for managers who run an organization of
similar size,” said Girard Miller, a public-pension and finance
consultant at PFM Group in Los Angeles. Bell has 80 full-time
employees, according to its latest financial report.
“What would make for an interesting law would be a statute
prohibiting excessive compensation in the public sector, with a
clawback provision,” Miller said in an e-mail. “That could
apply to excessive-pay union contracts as well.”

Public Trust

This is what happens when nobody is watching. Rizzo joined
Bell in 1993, on a salary of $72,000, the Times reported. The
city council, most of whose members make $100,000 for their
part-time labors, decided in their wisdom to keep giving their
city manager raises, and nobody called them on it.
I guess nobody knew. That’s not unusual; a lot of public
finance, as we have seen, is conducted in private. What’s worse
is that nobody cared.
For years, the public has professed profound indifference
to all aspects of state and local finance, including borrowing,
compensation and pensions. The sole exception has been taxes,
which everyone cares about.
Perhaps indifference is too strong. Maybe it’s just that
the public has trusted public servants to do the right thing.
This is about to change, and it’s about time. How much do
your city managers make?

(Joe Mysak is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions
expressed are his own.)