There is an On-Line service that offers access to any public employee’s pay and benefit records.  While we find that interesting we wonder just how useful this information might be. 

We think it far more important to determine what a job is worth than what an individual is paid.  Many factors must be weighed in determining individual pay; experience, knowledge of the job and the ability to deal with the public being among them.  We understand that in today’s tough economic climate that there is some jealousy, even animosity toward government workers and what they are paid.  We find most of our County’s workforce to be highly competent, dedicated and qualified.  Our concern is our ability to sustain the government that we have allowed.  That concern has been misinterpreted by some County workers as being “out to get them”, nothing could be farther from the truth.  Our goal is to have the most efficient government we can afford.

As property values continue to fall, property tax revenues continue to shrink.  The hard truth is that this County will not have enough money to continue to operate as it has in the past.  Raising taxes will not solve this problem, in fact would exasperate the problem.  The problem is spending and a very high percentage of government spending is personnel costs.

So how do we determine how much to spend on personnel?  We believe that there is a problem with this determination here in Martin County .  The county uses a consultant who provides comparable pay data based on the most common jobs in the county, but these data contain only government salaries and not private sector salaries.  Our contention is that the county should have a blend of both and then do the internal comparisons.  In essence, our County does "market pricing" and not job content analysis.  

Before you doing anything in an organization to determine pay it is necessary to set up an internal hierarchy.  This means setting the value of jobs in a hierarchy from low to high e.g. mailroom clerk to president and everything in between.  In order to do this, you need a job evaluation system that uses factor comparisons, not just simply comparing job titles. The objective is to assure that an attempt has been made to set a value on all jobs.  Employees also need to know that there is a system that considers the content of their job and how it relates to others by using a formal system rather than some subjective decision made by those in authority.

We do not believe that the county has done this.  Comparing jobs with what other counties are paying only assures that we are paying for jobs based on only what other governments are paying which only perpetuates the problem.  Until we correct that problem any reorganization will be doomed to fail.

The amount of payroll is certainly important but the central issue is really total compensation (pay and benefits).  All government benefits, not limited to Martin County , have risen to the point that total compensation in government is too high and that cuts, primarily in benefits will have to be made.  To meet our County’s budget crisis our County Commissioners will have to bring order back into the system and install systems that properly reflect reality and start recalibrating the county's benefit programs.  The harsh truth is that choices will have to be made between keeping a job with reduced benefits, or losing it because total compensation is too high, or having the job privatized.