No comment:
iLind.net
March 11th, 2010
Tam to repay $13,700 in meal expenses at just $380 per month and without any interest——————————–
KITV4
June 23, 2010
Rod Tam Allowed To Pay Ethics Fines Without Interest
He Will Take Three Years To Pay Restitution, Fines To Taxpayers
Keoki Kerr, KITV4 News Reporter
I noticed a couple of reports published last month by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research that have relevance for us. The first evaluates the public perception that public employees are just “feeding at the public trough” and are better paid than their private sector counterparts.
According to a press release announcing the report:
Recent media accounts have suggested that state and local workers earn more than private sector employees, but these analyses fail to control for the fact that public employees are on average older and have substantially more formal education than private sector workers, according to the CEPR report.
Once these systematic differences in the workforces are taken into effect, state and local government employees earn about 4 percent less than private sector workers at the same age and education level, the CEPR finds. The pay penalty is particularly large for the most skilled state and local workers, who trail more than 10 percent behind their private sector counterparts.
The full study is available, along with a spreadsheet with data cited in the report (link to spreadsheet available here).
A companion report compared benefits but found less available data.
Second, the limited survey data that are available suggest that when workers are compared on a roughly comparable basis, total compensation (wages and benefits) in the state-and-local and private sectors is roughly comparable. The government regularly collects data on employer costs for wages and benefits and publishes breakdowns for several broad categories of workers. None of the break downs controls for workers’ characteristics such as age and education, but one of the published categories – managers and professionals – does compare workers who have broadly comparable sets of responsibilities in both the state-and-local and private sectors. In the most recent data (covering December 2009), these government data find that “management, professional, and related” workers in the private sector receive, on average, $48.19 per hour in total compensation, almost exactly the same as the $48.15 per hour in the state-and-local sector. The slightly higher benefit costs for the state-and-local sector ($15.19 per hour compared to $14.07 in the private sector), just offset their slightly lower wage costs ($32.96 per hour compared to $34.12 in the private sector).
Speaking of earnings, check out this story from the Hartford (CT) Courant, which reports that the foreclosure crisis has led to skyrocketing income for a few state marshals.
Overall, the state’s 263 marshals collected $27.2 million for delivering legal papers, collecting taxes and enforcing judgments in 2009, a 13 percent increase over the previous year. Eighty marshals had gross incomes of at least $100,000, and 16 collected at least $250,000.
So who might be making more money here in Hawaii? The Rules of Civil Procedure spell out who can service legal papers.
From Rule 4:
(c) Same: By whom served. Service of all process shall be made: (1) anywhere in the State by the sheriff or the sheriff’s deputy, by some other person specially appointed by the court for that purpose, or by any person who is not a party and is not less than 18 years of age; or (2) in any county by the chief of police or the chief’s duly authorized subordinate. A subpoena, however, may be served as provided in Rule 45.
And from Rule 45:
(c) Service. A subpoena may be served at any place within the State. A subpoena may be served: (1) anywhere in the State by the sheriff or deputy sheriff or by any other person who is not a party and is not less than 18 years of age; or (2) in any county by the chief of police or a duly authorized subordinate. Service of a subpoena upon a person named therein shall be made by delivering a copy thereof to such person and by tendering to such person the fees for one day’s attendance and the mileage allowed by law. When the subpoena is issued on behalf of the State or a county, or an officer or agency of the State or a county, fees and mileage need not be tendered.
Following the money through this process sounds like a lot of work. Perhaps someone more familiar with the process will have some suggestions of where to seek out records or other information on this.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
There was a Hawaii judge who resigned, because he could earn much more as an attorney in private practice.
I believe public school teachers earn more than teachers at Maryknoll. Don’t know if that’s true at Punahou and Iolani.
But didn’t at least one judge who made such a comment– Duke Aiona– later return to a public job, albeit an elected one? Once you vest in the retirement/health fund, it probably makes sense for judges to leave the grind of the daily docket if you’re young enough to get a gig at a downtown law firm, or to sell yourself at DPR as a rent a judge,
Within the Attorney General’s office, I understand certain senior lawyers with specialized knowledge or experience can be paid substantial amounts, but no doubt much less than a mid-level partner at a prominent Bishop Street law firm. As a tax payer, I certainly want the State to have good lawyers on staff (rather than contracting out to private attorneys at higher cost which happens on complex cases) to handle basic contract drafting and review, and routine litigation.
Duke Aiona resigned as a judge because he grumbled about the low pay of judges and how he needed to go into private practice to take care of his family — yet the next job he took after he resigned was to run for Lt. Gov., which — wait for it — paid less than when he was a judge.
How much was he making when he resigned? And how much was the salary he got as Lt. Gov?
The challenge with government employees is not their pay but the inability to fire them when economic conditions change or for incompetence. Also, their retirement plans should follow private sector ones (i.e. defined contribution not defined benefit) and their retirement age should be raised from age 55 to 65. The insecurity of the private sector needs to be replicated in the public in the interests of creativity and performance. And I write as a former city & county employee.
I don’t have exact numbers, but a very significant portion of the public work force, the higher paid part of it especially, is comprised of excluded, exempt employees who can be fired for any reason (except prohibited ones) or no reason at all. Perhaps dispatching these typically managerial/professional workers in lean times would have more of an adverse impact on governemnt operations/service than releasing the civil service ones, but the option is there.
As for benefits, clearly, defined contributions v. defined benefits is the coming trend. But the public employer made a promise and has to keep it, at least to current employees. However, keep in mind, that it is in the benefits that the 4%-10% pay gap described by Ian is addressed.
Finally, not just anyone can retire at 55. One needs 20 years of service to do so and one suffers a 6% reduction in benefits for each year before age 62 that one retires. Again, this addresses the pay discrepancy to some extent but hardly comes at no expense to the employee. That said, increasing the years/ages required for retirement, say, with 25 years at age 58 with reduced benefits, and at age 65 with full ones, is somethig that will have to be considered as life expectancies continue to grow. Hawaii is second in the nation (to New Jersey) in per capita amount of unfunded liability for public worker retirement benefits at nearly $9,000 for every man. woman, and child in the State. OUCH.
From a former CCH employee.
In other words, someone was just spewing falsehoods?
Public sector work, generally, is more secure but pays less. That’s kind of the point. Every job is in the same labor market, so if you give in one area, you should expect to gain in another.
Racing to the bottom as far as treatment and compensation of employees is NOT the way to go, this nation’s economy was strongest when employees were the most secure and best paid.
Public sector employment (and public sector unionization) is proving to be a bulwark against economic exploitation of the entire working class, however many members of that class, brainwashed by conservative economic mumbo-jumbo, attack the public sector.
“this nation’s economy was strongest when employees were the most secure and best paid.”
Or was it that when the nation’s economy was strongest, the nation provided employees with job security and good pay?
What comes first? If you raise everybody’s pay, does everybody become more productive? If it were only that simple. I respectfully suggest that you find a failing business, buy it, give everybody a raise, and wait for the profits to roll in.
For me, I am happy to see anybody that does a good job make good money, public or private. I don’t begrudge anybody a good salary. My objection is to the deadwood on public payrolls. In the private sector, if an employer fails to address poor employees, I have the ability to choose to take my money elsewhere. With the public sector, I am forced to continue to do business with that particular government agency. We all agree on the need for full accountability in government contracts, right? Can’t we all agree on the need for full acountability in government employees? Public money is public money, whether awarded through contract or awarded through employment.
@WooWoo,
An individual employer has incentives to keep pay and benefits to employees low, but business owners as a group have an interest in customers having a great deal of purchasing power. These two imperatives are in conflict IF a business has to rely upon the employees of other companies to act as consumers.
You ask a fair question whether it is a strong economy which allows for high wages, but let me suggest both factors are mutually reinforcing. When employees have good wages, they can buy the products created by other businesses. This is at the core of an argument some of us have been having over how to resolve the state’s budget crisis. The simple solution offered by the Governor and (unfortunately) too many Democratic legislators, was top slash government services and wages for public employees as a reasonable response to the budget shortfall. Unfortunately, laid off (or furloughed) public employees cut their discretionary spending, leading to layoffs from other businesses they would otherwise patronize. Just as your scenario suggesting “Yeah” buy a business and raise salaries in order to gain profits lead to an obviously absurd result. it is EQUALLY absurd to believe we can grow the economy while cutting the purchasing power of consumers. And it is absurd to believe we will have a stronger economy in the future if we reduce investment in human capital and infrastructure today.
Frankly, I think the solution lies in redressing the growing imbalance in income. Working class people have to share in a greater share of the benefits generated by their work, not only because incentives are important to motivate hard work, but also because the economy depends upon a healthy middleclass consumer base.
@WooWoo,
To address your closing point more closely, I agree there need to be ways of rewarding productive public sector workers and retraining and or getting rid of less-productive workers.
Gains in productivity can be beneficial to everyone, provided the benefits are shared equitably. Too often the most popular approach appears to be to simply try to wring more and more concessions from a smaller pool of workers. That approach not only sucks. It is also counter-productive to the extent the public loses needed services AND the employees lose purchasing power.
public defenders would be one example of non-civil service work that isn’t “expendable” because it is exempt — these folks are over-worked and under-payed — they serve at will and without union protection because of the nature of the job
the knee jerk attitude that only civil service workers are the blessed ones deserving of fair treatment is a great misperception
To a certain degree, “deadwood” is a myth. Workers aren’t truly deadwood until they are, well, dead. Whether they do a good job or not, they have needs and wants as consumers, and their buying power contributes to the economy whether or not they are a good worker. There is nothing wrong with worker inefficiency, the important thing is for people to have jobs and have earning power.
That’s a big myth foisted on the public by conservative/business interests, that somehow we should strive for ever higher and higher levels of efficiency. All that means is less and less people do more and more work for no more total compensation. In the end we end up with less people spending money and more people in need. This is a model for disaster.
Remember, the perfectly efficient worker gets paid nothing.
Boy, Yeah, good luck finding support for your viewpoints.
“There is nothing wrong with worker inefficiency, the important thing is for people to have jobs and have earning power. ”
Along those lines, the more inefficient a worker is, the better, since more people will have jobs and have earning power.
How, pray tell, does an employer get the money to distribute to the mass of inefficient workers that s/he has accumulated? Do you, as a consumer, make it a point to eat at the restaurant that delivers least value for money? When you call a plumber to fix your toilet, do you ask them to send two guys that take long lunch breaks so that you can provide more jobs and earning power for them?
Obviously at the extremes inefficiency can be a problem for the employer, but the market takes care of that, as long as the consumer-producer relationship remains mostly free. As you said, if you got bad service, you probably wouldn’t patronize a certain business.
But if you got the same service although there were twice as many employees, there’s no change for consumers as long as prices are controlled. If the pay for the second employee comes out of profits, generally the economy will do better.
That is where changes need to happen, almighty profits need to be sacrificed, forcibly if necessary. We have a mechanism in place that makes this very easy, taxation. Taxation can be used to disincentivize disproportionate profit-taking. If disproportionate profits are taken, increase tax collections give government the funding to provide services for the many who do not otherwise get the income. It is a self-adjusting system.
The problem with the current system is that profits are taken while taxes are cut, creating a downward spiral or more people needing services and less money to provide it with. Very, very simple equation and we have it so very, very wrong.
I think you start with some noble intentions AND an important insight into the need for employees to earn enough money to buy the good and services produced by other employees in order for the economy to grow. Henry Ford himself, no fan of organized labor, recognized that workers in his factories needed to earn enough to buy the cars they produced or their would be a limited market.
The “free market” myths, promoted (as you say) “by conservative/business interests,” only want to focus on their need to cut wages and benefits, not on THEIR need to have paying customers. As if the two things are not related.
So a balance is needed. It is in large part because so many things are out of balance, largely because of the dominance of economic myths (and years of anti-union propaganda), that the economy is wobbling so badly.
I wish I could say it is the evil Republicans who are responsible. At the national level, that can (almost) be asserted without problem. Reagan, Bush I and II and congressional Republicans, slashed taxes on the wealthy, made organizing unions more difficult, de-regulated and gutted anti-trust legislation and/or enforcement.
But Clinton went along with it, accomplishing things as a “Democrat” that a Republican president could not have passed without massive resistance. Unfortunately, the election of Obama has meant a return of Clinton policies and (too often) personnel. But I digress….
IN my other comment below, I alluded to the Old Yankee saying: “You can’t get there from here.” Confronted with that “myth,” our friend “Yeah” seems to think he can just jump in a Sherman tank, rev the engine and head directly where he wants to go, ignoring mountain ranges, streams, forests and other obstacles. Any obstacles can be overcome, “forcibly if necessary,” through the exertion of determined state power.
I hope I am not unfair to suggest the nuanced approach of Keynes over the more simple approach of a Stalin? Your Sherman tank will fall off a cliff or roll over into a stream. There are roads and footpaths which CAN get you “there from here.” But the route is much more roundabout than you have patience for.
And you might consider that intensifying state power, even for your initial noble goal of greater equality and increased purchasing power for low income people, won’t survive the journey.
Vicki-
“It isn’t a cut in salary/benefits that suppresses discretionary spending, it’s fear of unemployment”
that is a great observation. Most people don’t run personal budgets that closely. a 5% pay cut doesn’t cause most people to reduce spending by 5%. I guarantee that if you gave somebody a 10% pay raise, but told them there was a 50/50 chance that their job would be eliminate in 1 year, then discretionary spending would plummet instead of rise or stay the same.
I don’t want to agree with WooWoo too often, but I disagree with “Yeah” about worker efficiency. Efficiency is important. Increases in real productivity raise the general standard of living. The problem is that increases in productivity are rarely shared equitably. There is strong data from the national level showing how the vast majority of increases in productivity have gone to the wealthiest people in society and that wages and salaries have NOT risen to reflect those increases.
Back to “Yeah” original point. A healthy economy requires a healthy middle-class. To go further, a healthy democracy requires a broad middle-class. Political power follows economic power. The more unequal the wealth, the more equal the real distribution of power in a society.
The income inequalities in the US have grown dramatically since about 1970. They are now the worst since the 1920s.
With the export of jobs to low wage countries, wages in the US have declined, but those consumers who retained purchasing power were able to buy products from China at greatly reduced prices. Unfortunately, this has resulted in an unsustainable “hollowing” of the economy. Economic expansion in the 80s and 90s was largely made possible by an extreme expansion of consumer indebtedness to provide purchasing power NOT based upon increased wages.
Again, that is unsustainable and the economy has come crashing down, led by the collapse of the real estate bubble.
The longterm remedy is to restore the earning power, and purchasing power, to a broad middle class. This has the added advantage of giving working people an incentive to learn a trade, be loyal to an employer and pass on a higher standard of livving to their children.
Or we can continue on our current path, depressing wages, suppressing consumer demand, watch the wealthy retreat to their multiple homes in gated communities and private schools while the social and physical infrastructure for the rest of society crumbles.
So on THAT point, I think “Yeah” is profoundly correct. The question is, how can we get there from here?
Vicki,
I agree the prospect of a lay-off sure dampens one’s spending. But a cut in earnings definitely suppresses spending as well. Yes, you went through a tough time with the closing of the paper. But I can tell you friends of mine who are state workers are watching their spending much more closely after the furloughs went into effect. Fewer meals eaten out, more bag lunches from home. More entertaining at home, inviting friends over for dinner.
Not all the bar and restaurant clientele is tourists. A heckuva a lot of it used to be local residents. That has fallen way off.
But whether it is reduced earnings from furloughs or the fear of being laid off in a future round of cuts, consumer spending by public workers is way down, which , unfortunately, exacerbates the recession. The administration and too many “city fathers” look for salvation in the form of imported spending from tourists, ignoring the need for healthy demand from local residents.
One of these days, Kolea, we need to sit down face to face over beverages and hash this stuff out. You’re way too smart to be wasted on causes of the left 😉
I have many disagreements with statements made in Yeah’s and your posts, but I just want to comment on one underlying theme. It seems to be implied that profits are a naturally occurring phenomenon.
In the world of business, profits are extremely rare. Most businesses fail. For a long time now, I have been on the prowl for a good business to start. I would love to join this class of economic overlords that many on the left rail against. Unfortunately, all of my factual analysis has reached the conclusion that it is a sucker bet to start a single business and expect it to succeed. So I continue to bide my time and save my money until the day I have enough resources to take 2 or 3 successive shots. Probably still a long way off. Maybe it will never happen.
I’m not against progressive taxation; I believe strongly in it. I just don’t believe that it is in any way a solution to the problem of income inequality.
I also think that its very simplistic and plain wrong to imply that the wealthy captains of industry have any active desire to create a class of low-wage indentured servants. They DO understand that prosperous workers equal more customers. But the ugly truth of the matter is that they do not have control over this. The consumer does.
One quick story. I once had an employee that complained to me about his hourly wage (which was in line with the going rate for unskilled labor). He pointed out that he had a previous job that paid 20% more doing the same work. I asked him why he left such a lucrative job. Well, the company went out of business, he replied…
With all of the criticism of free market ideas, it is too easily forgotten on the left that we are all the market. Walmart, the sinner of all sinners (well, until BP came along), is not a top-secret members-only shopping club where millionaires can buy things made in China so that union jobs are lost. Walmart’s success is based completely on the fact that it is giving consumers, of all income ranges, exactly what they want.
How many jobs has Craigslist destroyed? Seriously? If free online classified ads were banned, how many newspapers around the country would still be in operation? How many reporters and press operators would still have jobs?
We are the market, and we are the ultimate causes of what succeeds and fails. Let’s not cop out and blame the CEOs. Sure, there are ones here and there that can be singled out for being dumb. But all in all, business owners and executives are at the mercies of combined might of you, me, and 300 million other americans.
@WooWoo,
I’m not sure that a “face to face” would be more productive than the sometimes thoughtful exchanges we have online. But thanks for the generous spirit behind the suggestion.
We each come from our experiences, hopefully having draw somewhat intelligent lessons from them, which then influence our perception of the problems (and solutions) facing society. You speak from the perspective of a business owner, trying to find an opportunity to turn a profit in a tough market. I can’t speak for “Yeah,” but I think profits can be a legitimate reward for hard work, creativity and perseverance. AND/or, the can be the result of someone leverage knowledge, influence or position for an unfair advantage.
You write “profits are rare.” More rare for some than others. Adam Smith advocated capitalism as a means to tap into creativity and innovation. But he also understood business owners would use unscrupulous means to retain any unfair advantage they might have in pursuit of profits.
Some sectors of the economy are tremendously profitable. But it might be worth a gander to see how much this is the result of innovation and how much the result of “crony capitalism.” Big Oil, Big Pharma, Insurance, Military contractors, Wall Street investment banks, smaller banks, telecommunication giants, infotainment conglomerates….
You care, and I care, about innovative businessmen being rewarded for their work. We need incentives for people to “keep on keeping on.” That’s where human progress comes from. But TRADITIONALLY (not to get all “conservative” on you) we also worried about providing workers a plausible path into the American Dream of home ownership, a secure retirement, college education for their kids as a REWARD for THEIR hard work.
Just as “Yeah” omitted incentives for capitalists from his account, you have omitted the need for working people to have incentives from YOUR account of what makes for a healthy economy.
Since yu ar wiser than I, I can only assume you are also much older. The middle part of the 20th Century, perhaps starting from the efforts to recover from the Great Crash of 1929, saw an expansion of EQUALITY: politically, socially and economically. Income distribution, both in wages/salaries AND in TAX POLICY led to increased opportunity and shared prosperity.
In many ways. the project of the modern Democratic Party was wrapped up in trying to deliver on a Social Contract which promised an equal opportunity to participate in the American Dream if you worked hard at your job. Workers, minorities, women–all deserved a fair shot at education and even a Middle Class standard of living.
Conditions change and the economy has shifted in various directions. As the US economy has become more integrated with the world economy, US industry and workers face more direct competition from other countries, often with cheaper labor, fewer regulatory costs, etc. And the revolution in technology, especially with computers and high tech. It is inevitable that some industries, some groups of employees, will rise and other decline.
But there have been conscious policy choices being made throughout this period. NAFTA and the WTO have been consciously adopted to aid those industries manufacturing things abroad and re-importing to the US. Glass-Steagal and other “reforms” were pushed by Goldman Sachs, etc., to their benefit and to our detriment. Intellectual property laws have been strengthened in a way that enriches some. Environmental laws have been relaxed, enforcement nil, allowing for profitable operations based, in part, upon externalizing cost which should be borne by the polluters.
On the local level, Cayetano, along with the banks, pushed through income tax cuts which benefited the wealthy and robbed the General Fund of money which should have gone to the schools, the needy–all being slashed. Act 221 stole money from the GF, again for well-connected investors. Liberal capital gains laws in Hawaii encourage real estate speculation.
So not all of this is the inevitable result of “the Market.” The Market operates within constraints and according to systems of reward dictated by policymakers. Policy-makers cannot repeal the law of gravity, but they have more of an impact of the economy–and upon who benefits and who pays–than your account implies.
In broad terms, things are out of balance. The economy is out of balance. The incentive system is out of balance. The rich pay a lower effective tax rate than the middleclass, who pay less then working people. Where you are concerned about investors feeling optimistic enough to invest, I ALSO worry about young families finind the courage to keep working at a job in the hope they can afford to educate their kids, take care of their aging parents, etc..
The promise of the American Dream has been broken. Democrats are concerned and ashamed. Republicans have no shame and distract people by raising fears of illegal immigrants, swarthy foreign terrorists, queers wanting to detroy traditional marriage and “overpaid” public workers.
Which is why I am grateful to be able to exchange thoughts with you. Unlike 90% of the “conservatives” who post in these forums, you are not a reactionary. I am still a child of the Enlightenment, which gave rise to Locke and Montesquieu, Jefferson and Madison. And Adam Smith and, yes, Karl Marx. I believe in a strong “civil society,” including civil debate across policy differences, with due regard for both logic and evidence.
I believe people of good will CAN come together, disagree and learn from each other. Sometimes reaching accommodation, sometimes not, but still respecting “fair play.”
I am consciously “on the Left,” but I find myself being forced to fight for basic mid-20th century understandings of “fairness.” equal opportunity, “the scientific method” and human “progress.” Maybe someday, I can return to advocate for “left” wing ideas, instead of basic fair play, which should be the job of “the center.”