Money Is Too Easy for Public Servants

The Times has printed an excellent series of articles on pay and salary levels in Orange County city/county governments.

The article on Aug. 24 (“25 City Workers Earn $126,000 or More Each in ‘94”) concerning Huntington Beach city employees was frightening for the way in which an “easy money” attitude seems to prevail at all levels of city employment there. In your Sept. 19 front-page article (“200 Employees of O.C. Earn $100,000-Plus”), it seems there is a similar lack of checks and balances (toward overtime) in the massive Orange County bureaucracy.

I have little doubt that the real abuses are at very local (municipal) levels, though. The layers of fat, worse in some cities than others, continue to thicken and entrench. One needs only to conduct business with city bureaucrats for a brief refresher.

I am really amazed there has not been more fallout concerning the story on Huntington Beach. People, where are you?

DONALD ROWAN

Placentia

Re: Irwin Feuerstein’s letter (“Weighing Fairness in Salary Study,” Sept. 17) about public-employee salaries:

Yes Mr. Feuerstein, I certainly believe the public sector is overcompensated. And it is the single biggest reason why our various government agencies are running a deficit.

There is an inherent potential for run-away salaries in non-competitive enterprises, and unfortunately the interdependence of elected representatives on public employees aggravates this issue. The “fairness argument” is a cute ploy to justify higher than necessary compensation. A public servant’s purpose is to provide a service to the public. End of story. In fairness to the electorate, the pay/compensation should be based on supply and demand of capable workers willing to take the job of “a public servant.” If there are more than two job seekers for every job offered, the pay is obviously too high.

IVAR SCHOENMEYER

San Juan Capistrano

The outrageous compensation paid to county employees is even more illuminating than first recognized.

It tells us we are sliding even faster toward totalitarianism than we thought. The majority are law enforcement, confirmation that the California police state is already here.

Orange County is rapidly becoming a Third World, banana republic economy, as productive businesses flee the plunderers, and the plunderers seek new forms of confiscation.

Orange County government has become a redistributionist lootocracy. It should be disbanded, property and sales taxes abolished, and the citizens liberated to govern themselves.

It’s time.

DON HULL

Costa Mesa