State, university salary study likely
See what happens when some actual reporting is done by one of the state’s newspapers?
An article in Saturday’s Bangor Daily contained a fascinating list of the hundreds of state employees who make a higher salary than the governor. Nine of the ten highest paid state employees, the article revealed, work for the University of Maine system, including “former University of Maine System Chancellor Joseph Westphal” who is “now a full-time professor earning $208,382 a year.” Your tuition dollars at work!
Today’s BDN reports that the salary list has prompted calls in Augusta for, what else, a study of some kind to be done by the Governor or the Legislature. My experience tells me to beware of such a study. They usually find that public employees in Maine, like the rest of us, are paid less than peers elsewhere. Proposed solution? Raise salaries!
By the way, today’s article ends with a line that tells you all you need to know about how folks in Augusta think jobs get created:
“Another group, yet to be appointed by Edmonds and House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, is the Prosperity Committee that is supposed to find savings in state spending that can be used to invest in programs aimed at increasing jobs in the private sector.”
See? If we only spent more tax dollars on more state programs “aimed at creating jobs” we’d be all set!