That question will now be taken up by compensation and audit committees, as recommended by the commission’s hand-picked Citizens Oversight Committee.
The two new five-person committees would each consist of the chairman; a district commissioner who would rotate yearly; another elected county official; and two citizens with expertise in the field in question.
“We need to find where the (compensation) market is now,” he said in May. “It’s changed considerably over the last couple years.”
And as we noted on this page at that time, there’s no question that market conditions have changed: They’ve gotten worse, with many Cobb residents hard-pressed to pay their property taxes (especially in the wake of the tax hike Lee’s board approved last year) and with many county residents out of work.
Moreover, many Cobb residents have figured out that the kind of salary studies that Lee and Hankerson want are typically used to justify higher salaries for government workers, who usually have better pay and benefits than the private sector to start with.
It’s true that Cobb has been operating under austerity budgets for the past several years, and that compensation for county workers has essentially been locked in place.
Well, guess what? That’s true as well for the private sector, which foots the bill for the public sector.
Members of the new committees created by the commission should keep that foremost in mind as they go about their business, and say “no” to any effort by Lee, Hankerson or others to foist the $350,000 salary study on them.
Follow us on Twitter!
Love how Ott is always talking cut and trim and how the corporate world is cutting but in case you missed it, he just walked a pickett line and voted hinself a 13% pay raise in the corporate world. For his Delta salary he should be smiling while flying.
My Cobb just keeps morphing into a Fulton and Dekalb image...very sad for those of us who own property here...all those renters...they really could not care less.
The FOX guarding the hen house...
The hens who lay the eggs and actually make a difference....don't have a chance against the greedy county employees I mean fox
If Cobb County pay and benefits is so bad, why are they bombarded with applications??
If Cobb County pay and benefits is so bad, why are you still working there??
I was at one of the county offices last week and watched a front counter person reading what looked to be her personal yahoo email while she was supposed to be "working". Yes, they had me stand behind her work area while waiting and I gazed over at her work area to see how "busy" she was and could not help but notice. I am sure there are times when this person is swamped with work but based on my personal observation, she seemed to have a leisurely work day.
Cobb County has too many employees; cut the number and keep the pay scale FROZEN for another 2 years.
Fact: According to the Burueau of Labor Statistics and the Economic Policy Institute, government workers actually have LOWER pay and benefits than the their counterparts in the private sector.
Once again, we can't get to the point where we can debate opinions because, sadly, we're too busy arguing about inarguable facts.
The organizations I referenced provided recent information, and their reports can be found by anybody the same way that I found them...with your favorite search engine.
If Cobb County pay and benefits is so bad, why are they bombarded with applications??
If Cobb County pay and benefits is so bad, why are you still working there??
I was at one of the county offices last week and watched a front counter person reading what looked to be her personal yahoo email while she was supposed to be "working". Yes, they had me stand behind her work area while waiting and I gazed over at her work area to see how "busy" she was and could not help but notice. I am sure there are times when this person is swamped with work but based on my personal observation, she seemed to have a leisurely work day.
Cobb County has too many employees; cut the number and keep the pay scale FROZEN for another 2 years.
I never expected to get rich working for Cobb County, but I have bills to pay just like everyone else. All I ask is to be treated fairly.
SHAME ON YOU, if you were a supporter of that dog sledder dude who was not paying his taxes and ripping off Cobb County with his "homestead exemption" while also claiming to be a resident of Alaska and getting that state's bennies...people like you and that Alaskan dude are out to get over on the system any way you can. THANK GOD that Alaskan dude did not win, THANK GOD the MDJ exposed him for the crook he was...and THANK GOD Cobb voters were paying attention....yeah, Lacey, I definitely wanted Angelucci over that dude...24/7 - 365 days a year and still do.
I cannot rollover vacation or sick time.
"who usually have better pay and benefits than the private sector to start with." This is absolutley not correct...I have worked for both the private and public sector and the fact is that the private sector almost always has a higher pay scale than the public sector. As a matter of fact it is difficult many times to attract people from the private sector to work for governmnet as they are generally not willing to take the pay cut associated. If you don't know the facts please keep your opinoins to yourself. As Mark Twain said...it is better to appear an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt...
Government functionaries, particularly at the federal level now enjoy 20 % better pay and benefits that identical management level jobs in the private sector. Take a look at the booming housing market in the D.C. region. They have plenty of money up there, thanks to bloated, non-productive government jobs.
Most people asked to come to public sector jobs from private jobs won't...because they don't want to be in boring, dead-end, super-constrained, politically correct jobs, producing nothing.
Now, as for teachers and public safety employees, cut the staff of "administrators" at Glover Street in half (as a start) and use the savings to boost teacher pay by 25%. Public safety employees should get the same increase -- paid for by cutting 50% of the jobs at the worthless Cobb DOT and a variety of other unnecessary government departments. Hankerson's $250,000 salary needs a pretty serious haircut as well. That level is absurd for a man of this ability and character.
I agree with everything in your comment except your last statement.
Hankerson has minimal ability and even less character character.
Take a "0" off the salary you mentioned and that would be just about right.
Are you referring to the federal workforce? You may be correct if that is the case, but the topic is Cobb County government employee compensation,not federal employee compensation.
I and several others in my department work for Cobb County in a field which has direct counterparts in the private sector. I know for a fact thay our pay and benefits are substantially below those of our private sector peers because we have discussed this issue with them and have reviewed a national study comparing compensation with our peers across the United States and in Marietta and Cobb County.
Please stop perpetuating the overpaid Cobb County worker myth which seems to sell newspapers but fails to inform the citizens of the facts.
I have followed these blogs for over one year, and although your paper and some of your readers have argued numerous times that Cobb County employees are overpaid, I have not seen one shred of evidence which supports this contention.
As someone who tries to give the taxpayers (I am one too) an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, I do not want to be overpaid, but I do want to receive market based compensation, just like you and your readers do. Am I not entitled to that?
You appear to want the worst possible people working in your local government which tells me you have never run a business (I did for almost twenty years). Most successful members of the private sector understand the importance of having a professional, hard-working, lean government work force. This actually assists the private sector. For example, do you want a minimally trained building inspector signing off on your permits when he is likely to make mistakes which could delay the opening of your business by a month when you are borrowing money form the bank?
Think about it, you just might be cutting off your nose to spite your face. Again, we are not asking for exhorbitant compensation, just something close to market rate for market work.
Public sector or private sector.
Period.
If he could actually get more in the private sector, don't you think he would have jumped ship by now? But he hasn't, cause he's got it way, way too good living off of our backs, doing nothing but spending out money.
When will you people realize our government is not here to serve us....they are now only here to serve themselves bigger servings of our money. Geez.
And look at the record of Judy Skeel, his assistant, who was run off from Solid Waste, screwed up royally at CDOT and low and behold she got a cushy job as Hankerson's assistant.
Get a list of all county employees and their salaries and you will see where the big bucks go, yep right to the ones that the County does not rally need. But a guy who is a crew worker that has to get down in the sewers starts out at about $8.50 an hour.
Its public record but Tony Hagler will make you do an open records request to get it. And they will not tell you how many employees are in any position/pay grade.