Serfs fighting over their Lords' entitlements. Like poor people having twitter fights over some perceived indignity their favorite rich celebrity person suffered at the hands of the other poor person their arguing with. You don't even know these people and they couldn't care less about you. You're like gladiators in an arena. Be sure to tag me in your responses so I can laugh more. Alternatively if you think their underpaid I'm sure they'll accept your condolences in the form of a personal check especially you, um, rich guys in here. We're all very impressed by the way.
Superintendents are typically well compensated. The national average is well well over six figures. But most of the occupations listed in the article are being compensated at around twice the national average. There's nothing wrong with a state doing that if they can afford it, but that clearly isn't the case with Illinois.
In the United States Military the total number of active duty general officers is capped at 231 for the Army, 62 for the Marine Corps, 198 for the Air Force, and 162 for the Navy. The US DoD paygrade is O-10. A General receives a basic pay salary which starts at $186,000 per year and is capped at $197,000 per year once they have served for over 20 years. There will also be allowances for food, living off base and for certain transportation. When serving in a combat zone there is a special hazard pay supplement. There are many kinds of allowances - flight pay, jump pay, sea duty, submarine duty are a few. Some of these living allowances have COLA adjustments for certain areas. Salary is taxed but allowances are not. US Military Officer retirement pay is very complex. As far as I can tell, a General Grade with at least 20 years as a commissioned officer gets about 50% of their final year base salary.
You're making a nuanced but quite different argument than the article and the other posts. And although I don't completely agree with it, I do think it's far more reasonable and defensible. The article and most of the posts up to now have basically been throwing out the idea that anyone in public service is lazy, doesn't do anything of value, and it's somehow outrageous that any of them should be paid over $100,000 a year. Thrown in are either apples to oranges comparisons to the private sector, or complete ignorance that everything that happens in the public sector also happens in the private sector, because it's reflective of humanity in general. My beef is really with these arguments, which are both facile and insulting. You, on the other hand are saying that IL is paying more for a public sector job than others pay for that same public sector job and they don't have the funding for it. That's reasonable. I think smart well meaning people could argue that they would have the funding for it if they solved for a few of the more egregious loopholes in their pension system and if the boomers had fully funded that pension system when the liabilities were being incurred, and if they cleared out a lot of the dead weight of 200 years of history (they only recently closed several tuberculosis sanitarium tax districts, for example). And that perhaps you shouldn't expect good people to apply to important jobs if you pay below market wages compared to the private sector that the same person could earn doing a similar level job. But clearly at this point they do need to increase revenue or decrease spending and I would feel somewhat precarious raising taxes if I was them with Chicago as one of only 2 major cities left standing in the midwest that's still vibrant and successful. So no easy answers on that front, and like I said you make an imminently reasonable point.
I actually do know many of these people and having worked for 20 years in the federal government I was one of these people. And given I have a significant line of business in IL, I do pay a pretty significant sum into this system and benefit from it as well. Absent living there I really couldn't be more invested in the topic. So I'm not sure how you get off telling me to stop pointing out the fallacies on the subject that are running rampant on a thread that's clearly titled to be about the subject? You don't care about this particular topic, don't click on the thread, seems pretty simple to me. Better yet, if you're going to tell people they have no right to discuss a topic then maybe just stay away from web sites whose entire purpose is for people to discuss topics?
Most of these jobs are labour. Garbage truck driver, plow trucks, city landscaping, painting road lines, road sweeper trucks, etc. Not hard for dad to get his son in on an entry level position and move through the rankings via internal postings.
I've actually heard more complaints about this in Canada than in the U.S.. It always strikes me as odd because the general level of corruption seems to be much lower there, at least in Alberta where I have business.
When I worked in northern Alberts in oil sands it was outrageous the favouritism. Superintendent / construction management positions at the companies I worked for started around 200-250k a year. Most my trades department was all from the same tiny community from Newfoundland.Some were fresh Journeyman but family/neighbours. They were not horrible but there were way more qualified people for the task around. one project when commissioning started, the project was already two years behind so they went on a mass hiring spree. Management for this company basically our together some managers, they sought their super intendants and those guys basically hired their communities from Cape Breton and Newfoundland. Most these guys had no industrial experience and yet here they were making 80-120$ an hour to commission the plant yet they had no idea what the devices they were suppose to commission looked like. I tried hard to get that gig but plant had a 6 week poaching agreement. I’d of have to quit and been off site for 6 weeks to apply. Nothing guaranteed as far as resume went. The 4 jobs I did out there I got because of someone I networked with and got me a construction managers e-mail. The resumes sent online through their sites made it to junk boxes of HR. It was all mostly name hire and their was little risk for a foreman to vouche for a buddy as everyone there knew it was a 1/2 year gig and then it was all dismantled. Take the money and run was more the motto.