Meet Your Public Servant----"Richie Rich"

Every time I read the salaries of our illustrious public servants, I simply shake my head and think why did my crystal ball in the 1980's reveal 20 years later, the gig to be in, the gravy train to feast, was in public service.

With school and tax levies coming forth, we have a fire Chief and his overhead laden three Deputy Chiefs pulling down about $105,000. annually, plus the excellent retirement and medical benefits paid. We have a former and now retired Police Chief, who made $170,000. We have a school superintendent who started in Middletown as a former Assistant Superintendent and the only candidate available for Middletown schools, who I recall his entry salary was about $107,000. three years later and terrible performance still stuck on CI, making $147,000.

We have a teacher making $130,000. annually. We have so much blatant nepotism, it makes my head swim. Christy Jeffries, daughter of former police Sgt., transfers to Middletown from Oxford, no college degree, making nearly $80,000., at age 30. Newlin's son of the magistrate, $80,000 range while Dad makes about $106,000., and now all judges and magistrates can sit until age 70 on bench, so they can defer that nice max on social security payout at age 70. Why, we have Jackie Philips, who doesn't even have a department nor employees, as the Public Health czar, making $82,000 on her fererally funded contract with virtually no span of control. That is about $12,000 more than 2X dipper Pat Burg, head of Butler Cty Health, making now about $ 150,000. from her retirement, and $72,000 on her second bit of the apple in same position.

When does this end, the Wall Street salaries for people able to walk to work or ride a bike, no 30 mile commutes, no travel across the country, and surely, no stress and accountability? Perhaps at the voting booth, but as SR5 failed, I'm not optimistic.

Meet your neighbor and your public servant. His/ Her name is Richie Rich, the one driving the Lexis LS 400 and restored Porsche 911. Up is down, down is up, welcome to Greece.

    

Well said, acclaro. The genie was let out of the bottle back in the 70's, 80's and 90's when, for the most part, times were good and the private sector was roaring for much of the time. No one cared much about the comparatively modest public sector pay and bennies. The brilliant people, though they didn't know it at the time, were the union negotiatiors. They probably didn't know that the last 10 years were going to be horrible for our economy (and for some sectors, go back 20 years) and the private sector but they sure "choose wisely" (see Indiana Jones). The real blame lies with the municipalities who during that time, have not had the cajones to put a stop to it. THe excuse is always "well, we have to pay market rate or we'll lose good employees". Or, as we've seen with Picard, blatant pandering for votes. Disgusting. Other than Kasich and his clumsy attempt at SB5, where are the municipal public servants who have some balls to put an end to this gravy train? Where are the innovative plans for outsourcing some city functions? Where is our savior!!!

We do not have any teacher making $130,000. The Journal listed Newell as a teacher; he was the high school principal, and he is gone, and the new principal makes less. Same with Mr. Hall, he is listed as a teacher with a high salary but the salary is based on last year, when he was an assistant principal at the high school. We eliminated an assistant principal position and now he is back in the classroom as a teacher.