Politics

You gotta love politicians.

Here in North Carolina the state isn't allowed to run deficits. So, at the end of the year the budget has to balance. If it doesn't balance then immediate cutbacks have to be made. This year one of the ways that this was done was every state worker had their salary cut 0.5% for the year. Sounds minor but this 0.5% is being implemented in one month so it turns out to be a salary cut of 6% for the month.

And you know what makes it worse? Even though I'm paid by a federal grant they're peeling back my salary too! According to the state HR, they want to treat everyone the same despite the fact that the budget is only helped by cutting costs on state paid workers. But enough of my whining. This has nothing to do with my post... I am just venting.

There's an article in today's Durham Herald-Sun about a state funded position with NC State. It seems that for the past 4 years Mary Easley has run a speaker series for NC State. She oversees a budget of around $100,000 and she gets paid $170,000 to do that. Do you see a problem with the math there? One other salient fact might help out here with the numbers analysis. At the time she was hired, Mary Easley husband was Governor of NC. Coincidence? Maybe. But probably not.

Spouses getting well paid cushy jobs is just one of the byproducts of politics. You gotta love those politicians.

Oh, and in an effort to save money the program that Mary Easley administers is being eliminated. But she still gets the $170k job for another year due to the nature of he contract. Gotta love it. Still get paid but have the bulk of your work eliminated. And don't get the idea that this is all news to her. Several high ranking officials with the state have formally asked Easley to relinquish her position---but she's not going to let her gravy train go without a fight. And so it goes.

Comments

Teresa said…
Sorry about your pay cut, Dave. Across the board pay cuts are the easiest way for companies to cut costs without running into employment issues. A lot of companies have done it, so doing it on a governmental level isn't unusual. And it is for just a month, so you got off easy. Typical cuts around here are 10 %, with no clue as to when (or if) regular pay rates will go into effect. Most deal with it and consider themselves lucky to have a job.

On the other front, the woman probably did get the job because of who she knew... but I wouldn't assume that the contract wouldn't have been the same (state mandated rules and all!) or that the job is necessarily cushy. Smaller budgets tend to have a lot of restrictions and often require a lot of work and headaches. That said, I'd do the job for a fraction of her wages, headaches or not.
Gah! This kind of thing makes me crazy! And, it doesn't matter because the same people get re-elected and so on, etc!!!
srp said…
I say we get rid of them all... particularly the 21 Czars that have shown up the last five months and go back to the precepts of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and just start over... are we not allowed a do over? We really don't own our own country anyway... basically we are owned by China!

My head starts spinning around and around and the bed levitates when I think about where our country is now headed.... waiting for the pea soup.
Deana said…
Mrs. Easley should be the first to go and all others like her. Sorry about you cut. I think more and more people are going to have to do that.

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