New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
In August of 2012, I wrote and published “It Pays to Be a Public Servant.” I recommend reading that article to gain a perspective of how much pay raises have gone up in New Bedford in just a single year. For example, the City of New Bedford went from 52 employees making over $100,000 a year in 2010 to 72 making over $100,000 a year in 2012. An example is the mayor’s salary going from $98,735.79 to $109,826.05. In my view, the mayor’s salary is still too low, but that’s another topic. An interesting fact is that today there are 26 city employees that make more than our mayor. You can examine the 2012 city pay database on The Standard Times website here.
Depending on who you talk to, these city salaries are either too low or too high. Many will tell you that to attract the best, you need to pay a comparable private sector salary. Talk to the average New Bedford resident who makes about $15,000 – $20,000 a year and they will tell you these salaries are too high. To be exact, the per capita income in Massachusetts is $33,460 compared to just $15,602 to $20,168 in New Bedford. Also, New Bedford seems to always have twice the unemployment as the state of Massachusetts. The unemployment rate in New Bedford stands at 12.4% with the Massachusetts unemployment rate at 6.2%. Do we continue to give pay raises to people making so much money in a terrible economy?
As it stands today, 164 New Bedford employees make over $90,000 a year with 72 of them making over $100,000 a year. As I pointed out last year, the vast majority of these high paying salaries go to the police and fire departments, all critical jobs for the city. These are dangerous jobs and earning six times the average salary can be justified once you compute risk, overtime, skill needed, experience and education. The big question for me is, should they get pay raises in an environment with high unemployment and low pay city wide? Would we lose this talent if we didn’t?
It Pays Double to Be a State Legislator
As I pointed out last year, The New Bedford City Council voted to increase their salary from $14,612 to $21,000. To be fair, let’s compare the New Bedford City Council pay to that of State Legislators and New Bedford City workers.
In October of 2011, The CommonWealth Magazine produced an article titled, “The $100,000 Club.” This caught my eye:
“The base salary for a state legislator is $61,133 a year, slightly less than the median household income in Massachusetts of $64,057. (The per capita income in Massachusetts is $33,460, according to the 2010 Census.) Lawmakers receive an additional $7,200 for expenses …”
The question I have to ask is, if you are getting paid $69,000+ to be a legislator, shouldn’t you put all of your working hours into becoming a legislator? If people in New Bedford are earning $15,602 a year working 40 hours a week, shouldn’t our legislators be putting all their time into their job when they are earning four times that amount of a New Bedford worker, or twice as much of a Massachusetts worker? We have 23 Massachusetts lawmakers earning more than $100,000 in outside income and many others earn close to that. That means that 23 of them are making at least $161,000 a year of combined income and likely devoting most of their time to their outside jobs. Is there any wonder our legislators don’t read or know what is in the bills that they vote on? Or why they need huge amounts of staff paid for by the tax payer? Maybe they wouldn’t need a large staff if they devoted more time towards their public service job.
In Closing
I’ll close this article the same way I did last year. I’m certain that New Bedford and Massachusetts are just like most cities and states in America. I also understand that many high paying jobs are based on experience, education and hazardous duties. I have more of an issue with our state legislators getting rich from public service and not giving their full attention towards their jobs than I do with a police man or woman earning $90,000 a year in New Bedford. As New Bedford residents we should pay less attention to the newspaper headlines and spend more time reading the fine print in our City Budgets and city pay statistics provided to us by The Standard Times. You’ll discover that pay raises and huge budgets increase more rampart than thought and it can pay very well to be a public servant.
I absolutely agree Mike. These men and women work 1 maybe 2 days a week and usually attend a one hour meeting or two. They often thwart the efforts of the acting administrator in charge IE the mayor, usually do to biased views, general dislike, or just back alley business deals that don’t agree with the current issue. They don’t work for the city, they work for themselves, and I for one will never vote for anyone who decided a raise was needed when so many in the city are struggling. In the words of John Saunders, “If you don’t like it, you can just vote me out.”, I suggest we do.