Published: September 22, 2009 07:25 pm      

9-23 Letters: your views

What were they thinking?

EDMOND — What were they thinking?

To the Editor:

The Oklahoma County Democratic Party strongly opposed the proposed pay raises for eight elected county officials, which were finally voted down by the county budget board. What were they thinking? Even though the automatic pay mechanism remains in place, it now appears nearly certain that the three county commissioners will follow the more recent recommendation of the Budget Board and remove the automatic pay raise mechanism, which has been in place since 2004. This was and is not the right mechanism to have in place with or without a difficult economy.

Oklahoma County elected officials currently have compensation that is 2.6 times the median family income in Oklahoma and almost five times more than the average per capita salaries of the people in our state. Surely the board can understand that the United States is weathering the most severe recession since the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s. Few Oklahomans have the opportunity to set their own salaries and have virtually guaranteed pay raises, funded by county taxpayers, every year.

According to the Oklahoma County Web site, compensation in 2008 for the eight elected county officers ranged from about $106,000 to $113,000. Although we respect our elected officials, this type of compensation when compared to the Oklahoma median household income in 2008, which was about $41,500, and Oklahoma per capita income in 2008, which was in the neighborhood of $22,500, is hard to justify or understand. In Oklahoma, nearly 16 percent of individuals lived below the poverty level in 2008.

What were they thinking?



Tom Guild

Edmond



TOM GUILD is secretary of Oklahoma County Democratic Party.