Want to live in comfort and even luxury? Get a top job with the local county government. During the past decade, local government employees' pay and benefits have escalated to the point that these "public servants" are doing better financially than most elected officials, including many at the highest levels of federal authority, and the taxpayers who support them.
The usual rationale for paying sky-high salaries to county functionaries is the high cost of living in the Washington region. But this is circular logic since the high salaries themselves add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of local government, which in turn increases the local tax burden and raises the cost of living. Another excuse is that counties cannot attract or retain highly qualified employees without guaranteeing them six-figure paychecks. But that argument falls flat when bureaucrats in Montgomery and Fairfax county government get higher salaries than those paid to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. As The Washington Examiner
supervises the county executive's staff,
makes almost $67,000 more than the Secretary of Defense, who manages the U.S. military headquartered in the Pentagon. And Fairfax County Executive Anthony Griffin receives more taxpayer-supported compensation than the Secretaries of Commerce or Homeland Security.
Does anyone actually believe that running a suburban Washington region county requires a higher caliber individual and more executive skill than running an entire federal department? The disparity is compounded by the fact that these exorbitant salaries are not limited to a select few at the top. Nearly 800 Fairfax County employees are paid more than $100,000 annually. It's even worse in Montgomery, where $100,000 is merely the average cost of pay and benefits for all county employees.
Elected county officials who rubber-stamp bloated budgets are to blame. Fairfax
County had to cut 38 percent ($30 million) in spending for parks and libraries to help pay for a 70 percent increase ($103 million) in the cost of employee benefits. Montgomery is in such bad financial shape that the County Council was forced to make $32 million in mid-year cuts earlier this month and is still anticipating a $300 million budget gap next year. County officials point to such minor belt-tightening as proof they are exercising fiscal restraint. Don't believe it. When Montgomery County's director of public information makes more than Gov. Martin O'Malley and the Fairfax county attorney takes home a fatter paycheck than Gov. Bob McDonnell, restraint is not part of the local government vocabulary.
