September 6, 2007

ValleyViewpoints

City workers’ salaries should be public

Editor,
The recent release of the salary information of city workers is a good thing. Privacy issues seem to be a weak argument. Taxpayers should have the right to know if their tax dollars are being spent wisely.
We hear terms like "living wage" and "we need to increase wages because of the high cost of living here." These concepts can lead to distorted wage levels.

In the ideal situation, there are many qualified applicants and each applicant has opportunities at several employers. To get the right person with the right qualifications, an employer must structure his offer to compete with other employers looking for the same qualified individual. This is a true market auction system and the likely result is a realistic wage.

The applicant determines what his "living wage" requirements are. This will vary person to person. One applicant may be the father of five children. Another may be single person living with his parents and be more interested in gaining experience, with money being secondary. The employer cannot possibly know how to prejudge these individual requirements.

Reviewing the salary structure of city employees, it is difficult for me to make a judgment. My frame of reference is my salary level when I retired from IBM many years ago. The salaries seem high, and comparison with other municipalities, would seem to suggest this.

Last year I served as a public member on a three-person panel to review applicants for San Jose firefighter positions. I was impressed with the qualifications of the applicants, particularly with their experience as paramedics. There were about 10 qualified applicants for every four job openings. This would suggest that salaries and benefits could be reduced and still get the best people. However these were for unionized positions, which is a monopoly situation and prevents the use of individual applicant auction determinations.

Let us hope that the city uses the auction system when determining what economic benefits need to be offered to get the right person for a salary position. I cannot determine if they do.

Bob Boydston
Former AVCA president
Almaden Valley

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