Once again, the salaries of the Township’s top managers are the subject of comment, much of it critical.
Usually, it’s the legally required once-a-year report on municipal salaries that generates a response.
But this time, the trigger was a Times story about an email defending the amount paid the most senior employees.
Township Human Resources director Shannon Harvey-Renner wrote a resident to say the salary paid to the top manager, CAO Mark Bakken, reflects “the extensive training, skill, expertise and experience that is required to run an organization the size and scope of Langley Township, which is essentially a $1.5 billion corporation.”
Seen in that light, $300,000 (including expenses) to run an operation of that size is, if anything, a bargain given the responsibilities the CAO has.
But some taxpayers would beg to differ, judging by the letters that have landed in The Times’ in-box since the story appeared.
Some object to the comparison with the private sector, saying the difference between the hundreds of thousands a senior public manager makes and the millions their private sector counterpart can bank is that the money for the public sector staffer comes directly out of their pocket in the form of taxes.
But what would happen if some budget-minded council decided to pay top managers a lot less?
Chances are, there would almost certainly be a migration of managers to the private sector.
Hiring replacements with the same degree of education and experience would be a challenge.
And keeping them would be tricky, too.
Bottom line: there is nothing to force people who work in the public sector to remain there against their will.
Whether they want to or not, Langley taxpayers are competing with private companies for able managerial talent.
No one at the Township or this newspaper is suggesting senior municipal managers should have parity with their private sector counterparts, who make as much as 30 times more.
But when people are charged with administering $1.5 billion in public money, it is hardly unreasonable to expect them to make more than the average, especially given the level of education and experience required.
You get what you pay for.
