Pay Scale
| After literally throwing away millions of dollars
over the last few years, a few weeks ago, the Loudon County Board Of
Education in a failed attempt to show the voters how hard they were
trying to save money, voted to eliminate their pay. Up till the
elimination of pay, BOE members received a monthly stipend of $300.00.
Now nothing. But that isn't sitting very well with some BOE members. At
last week's meeting some of the board members voted to reinstate their
$300.00 per month pay. But being the political season the motion failed.
Ten members @ $300 per month is $36,000.00 a year.
Well here's a thought. Having served as an elected official, I know there are expenses associated with being an elected official. It's not right to ask any elected official to work for nothing. Everyone is entitled to fair compensation for their work. But in the case of the BOE members, $300 per month, and county commissioners, $700 per month, is this fair compensation for their work? For some maybe for others, way too much. Some of our elected representatives, BOE members and commissioners, put many hours in each month on local government matters, others might have no more than a few hours a month. The solution seems simple. Why doesn't each commissioner and BOE member keep a monthly time sheet of the hours spent on local government business. Meetings attended, on site visits, phone calls ETC.? Decide on a fair hourly amount, let's say $15.00 per hour, then at the end of each month, each commissioner and BOE member could turn in their time sheet to the finance department for their check. This is currently common practice for many other county employees. How does it get more fair than that. The elected official, commissioner or BOE member, would be fairly compensated for their time working for the citizens and the citizens would be getting their moneys worth from their elected representatives. A win win for everybody. |
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7/7/08