Holy Crap!! FWIW, I actually know Dr. Montanaro pretty well. He sold his private practice 4 years ago. A very funny guy, as is evident by his quips on being #10. http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/11/top_pension_for_oregon_public.html
5 doctors, 2 school administrators, a lawyer, a mathematician and a football coach. FWIW, I get what a lot of them were saying about taking smaller raises for higher pensions...I would probably do the same if offered. My question, though, comes from the salaries themselves that the pensions are based on. I thought that, aside from football coaches, government salaries were capped? Not saying that a prize-winning mathematician or doctor doesn't deserve 500k a year or so, but do you not have maximum salary tables in Oregon? For example, a doctor in the military is paid solely on rank and length of service, and even if they were the highest-ranking general in the army (which they wouldn't be) at the longest tenure in the army (40 years), the salary is capped at ~215k a year.
No, we don't have any cap, and there is also no cap on PERS payments. Our Democratic-led state has no interest in reforming PERS to make is sustainable. As it is now, ~$3 billion/year is paid by the taxpayers for PERS retirees. Our entire state's budget is $37 billion. $240k/year in taxpayer-funded retirement isn't a bad gig, though. To put that in perspective, ~9% of our state taxpayer dollars go to people who have "retired" from a state job. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/piechart_2011_OR_statelocal
Not sure about in Oregon, but at UW I had a finance professor that was making something like 200k a year. I think he had only been teaching for 2 years (we figured he was only 32) and he was making more than all but 1 other finance professor. He had worked at Goldman and Lehman and then went to Kellogg. The only way to get him to teach (and come to UW rather than a more elite school) was to pay him at a premium. I just looked him up. Since then, he's taught at NYU, Chicago and now is full professor Boston College. i would think it'd be the same for any field where the alternative to teaching is so lucrative (finance, law, etc). Of course, some of these people are on the list mostly due to how long they were on the job. For those types of jobs, some sort of cap is probably smart.
If that were true (salary cap for everything except for football coaches) then that would truly be evidence that we are collectively idiots. barfo
The theory has always been, top government employees must be paid as much as their private industry equivalents, or private companies will hire them away. Therefore, the solution to cutting government spending is to cut salaries of the captains of industry and their analysts.
That is the theory, however it is not the practice. In reality, most top government jobs pay far, far less than private industry, and private industry does hire the good (and even the so-so) people away. If government was actually "run like a business" the President would make hundreds of millions per year, not hundreds of thousands. We've got the government we deserve, because we are such fucking cheapskates. barfo
Of course. So do pilots, submariners, nuclear-trained enlisted, SEALs, etc. But that's not "salary," is it? There's a reason it's called a reenlistment "bonus." Those "bonuses" are capped at, iirc, 21k (15k for ASP and 6k max for BCP). EDIT: In addition, it seems that there is a bonus for doctors in certain specialties with over 8 years of service if they sign up for a 4-yr contract of 75k per year. That might be what you were talking about, BP.
Our elected officials are $millionaires who further enrich themselves through insider trading (which they exempted themselves from). Our government is the most expensive enterprise in the history of the world. Yet we're not getting out of it anywhere near what we pay in. If it were run like a business, you'd invest $1 in taxes and the government's value would be $2. Instead, they TAKE $1 and give $.10 in value.
That's federal. Most states have no set pay because there would less opportunity for bribery and payoffs and rewarding political donors. I believe since all State schools take tons of federal money they should be held to federal standards. For any coach or athletic director of a school to make six figures never mind 7 figures is absurd. It's a school, it's a game, it ain't rocket science. Frankly, it should be a volunteer position. None of these PERS 1%ers were worth what they were paid for employment, but it's not their fault they were paid it and they are entitled to every dime. Look to the actual people who made the decisions to grossly overpay them. Look to the football fans who clamored for Bellotti's hire, no matter what. Mostly, look to the people who refuse to accept healthcare reform and government-provided health insurance.
You're right, it's a legalized bribe. A form of passive duress. Still comes out of taxpayers pockets though.
For what it's worth, nobody doing the same job should make less than a federal employee. They aren't overpaid, most people are just underpaid in comparison.
I think we actually kind of agree on this. I'm saying that part of the reason the results are bad is that we are unwilling to pay the going rate for top managers (with the one exception being football coaches). Naturally if you hire the bottom of the barrel, you get bottom of the barrel results. Top government employees are corrupt at least partially because they aren't fairly compensated. Because of the low pay, you attract (a) the rich, (b) the incompetent, (c) the corrupt, and (d) the people who genuinely want to serve and don't care about money. Unfortunately, there aren't enough of (d) to fill all the positions (and it is hard to tell ahead of time which ones are (d) and which are just pretending to be (d)). barfo
I think that is a very misleading analogy. We aren't investors in the government. We are customers of the government. We aren't buying stock in the government when we pay our taxes. We are buying services. So the right question is, does the government provide $1 of services for $1 of taxes? [We are also owners of the government, but we don't have to pay for that - we inherited the stock]. barfo
And you call my views extreme. People don't and shouldn't serve in government for the pay. It should be about public service.
Hell no. The solution to deficits is to spend only what the govt. takes in, and it shouldn't take in all that much.
Indeed I do. I think that view is dangerously naive, albeit widely held. People who think government should be "run like a business" in particular should not hold that view. barfo
People who think govt. should be run like a business mean it should be efficient, fiscally sound, and to do what's best for the shareholders (that would be us). The whole point of not paying public workers high salaries is that government isn't supposed to be royalty.
