The Dewey Decimal system finally pays off

[Cool Texan]

This is just ridiculous...

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/orego...4721147620.xml

[TheRogue]

Originally posted by Cool Texan:
She was making $121k in DC. Adjust that to Portland....and her salary should be $88k. So all things equal, she just got a 57% pay raise.

Still amused?

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Wow, let's see, I'm guessing she has at least a Master's Degree, if not several. She obviously has quite a bit of experience, and she's technically the supervisor of dozens of employees, as well as overseeing a many-multi-million $$ budget.

Yup, still amused.

TR

[Cool Texan]

Ok, chew on this one then:

The ALA Survey of Librarian Salaries 2001 reported a mean salary range for librarians with an ALA-accredited master's degree of from $32,891 (beginning) to $72,384 (director).

http://libraryjournal.reviewsnews.co...libraryjournal

$72k national average versus $138k salary. You really think we have the #1 school system in the country?!? Its a joke. She is now the HIGHEST paid department director in the COUNTRY.

[TheRogue]

Nope, still don't think she's overpaid, just think the rest are chronically underpaid, assuming the same qualifications of higher degrees, significant experience, # of employees supervised, amount of $$ overseen, etc.

TR

[Cool Texan]

Is this the right time and place to "right the wrongs" that you claim exist?? Uh, no.

[TheRogue]

Originally posted by Cool Texan:
Is this the right time and place to "right the wrongs" that you claim exist?? Uh, no.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">If you'll please see my very first reply to this post:

Originally posted by TheRogue:
On the other hand, now is NOT the time to be giving huge salary increases for these positions, new hire or not. That extra money could've been better used somewhere else closer to the "field" level.

Have to give this one a thumbs down.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Please read everything I post, not just the part that you'd like to, thank you

TR

[Cool Texan]

No sweat Rogue. Just sounded like despite the thumbs down that you supported it in general.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go learn how to work a card catalog so I can get a promotion! :grin:

[Straydog]

Not a good example of common sense and good judgement, given the timing.

However, I bet the Librarian that moved to Brooklin didn't do it for the quality of life.

You get what you pay for.

Let's see, 16 branches in the most populous County in the State and a nationaly recognized system. Probably a little more to it than cataloging...

[Cool Texan]

True. She also has to put books back on the shelves and shuuush noisy people. :grin:

[Thumper]

Apparently she also is paid more than the governor, the mayor of Portland, the Multnomah County Sheriff, the head of OSP, and only $2,000 less than the police chief of Portland.

I wanna be a librarian!!!

[Silver Hilton]

Originally posted by TheRogue:
Nope, still don't think she's overpaid, just think the rest are chronically underpaid, assuming the same qualifications of higher degrees, significant experience, # of employees supervised, amount of $$ overseen, etc.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">From an economics standpoint, how can they be underpaid? While it is clearly true that many government employees make less in salary dollars than many private sector employees, they are choosing to stay in these jobs at these salaries. There are plenty of candidates for the jobs at these salary levels. That means the salary seems to be a market clearing rate, and therefore can't be too low.

Salaries are only too low when they fail to attract enough candidates to fill the job. If these people feel that they are underpaid in the public sector, why don't they migrate to the private sector? Obviously there are many reasons, including type of work, lifestyle, benefits, and pace of work.

It is a separate social question as to whether a given salary can adequately support a person, and to what extent society should subsidize the salary to increase people's standard of living beyond what they can earn via their labor.

[fish_on]

Good thing you Multnomah County folks just agreed to raise your taxes gotta pay those high salaries. Since all these tax increases are falsely put on the backs of helping school kids that don't need anymore help, let's asks how many books could that raise buy, how many of the poor children are going to flunk because of this. Good thing there are people in this state working to pay too high of taxes so the left of the state can waste it.

[1pump]

Hmmm....they didn't mention PERS. And they didn't mention how much the New York job is going to be paying Ms. Cooper.
I don't understand why they had to go to the national level for a replacement. Our library system is important, but it's not like it was in bad shape and needed a high dollar overhaul. It just had one. [img]graemlins/eek13.gif[/img]
On the other hand, I have no idea what the librarian's responsibilities are, or what skills are required, and we're sitting here criticizing her income. BTW, has anybody ever seen a male librarian? :whazzup:
I'm currently competing for a city job, and I don't like the idea of my future possibly being in the hands of the voters or some commissioner who has never met me and has no clue what I do. But that's a risk I'm going to have to take.

[TheRogue]

Salaries are only too low when they fail to attract enough candidates to fill the job. If these people feel that they are underpaid in the public sector, why don't they migrate to the private sector? Obviously there are many reasons, including type of work, lifestyle, benefits, and pace of work.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">You forgot the private sector benefit of being able to complain about how much public employees get paid and how little they actually work!! .

Personally, I just feel that compensation for a public sector career, which requires a master's degree, significant job experience, and money skills should be somewhat similar to what private sector compensation is. Don't you suppose that the public sector AS A WHOLE would be more likely to get a larger pool of candidates if the $$$ were similar?? I'll tell you that in the federal workforce, many positions wouldn't even get any applications on them...the $$$ disparity was just too great. Fortunately we've been in a "jobless recovery" (its a damn recession!) for long enough now that we can actually get some interest in professional level career positions!!!!!

TR

[ 08-08-2003, 08:43 PM: Message edited by: TheRogue ]

My wife is a librarian and she sure doesn't bring down that kind of money :shocked:
Hey but we do get a lot of cool old magazines

[Silver Hilton]

Rogue,

You may be missing my point. I'm not complaining about public employees, nor do I think they are leeches sucking the blood of the system. I am making no value judgements about how much or how little work they do. I merely observe that the market clears at the low levels of salaries. That is, there are few, if any, of these underpaid jobs that are going unfilled at these low salaries. From a pure capitalist, free market sense, that strongly implies that the jobs are correctly valued, in the context of the overall economy, at their current salary rates. If they weren't, they would have gone unfilled.

I think there are some job categories where the term "underpaid" is perhaps correct. New teachers, for example, because the districts, at least up here, are having trouble attracting enough quality teachers at the junior ranks.

[TheRogue]

To me, most of these administrators are underpaid. Look at the budget $$ and staff they are responsible for! Always amusing when people seem to think that public employees should work for less $$ than comparable positions in the private sector.

On the other hand, now is NOT the time to be giving huge salary increases for these positions, new hire or not. That extra money could've been better used somewhere else closer to the "field" level.

Have to give this one a thumbs down.

[Cool Texan]

She was making $121k in DC. Adjust that to Portland....and her salary should be $88k. So all things equal, she just got a 57% pay raise.

Still amused?

[CATCH AND EAT]

Why is it that every time we have a position open up we have to do a "national search" for a qualified applicant? When I hear the words "national search" all I see is red. Well, green that is flowing out of taxpayers pockets.

I feel the administrators are paid plenty. Matter of fact we are administration top heavy. Just ask your local $30,000 a year teacher what they think. Administrators don't teach kids, teachers do.

As for a head librarian, that is a ton of cash and a very poorly founded decision. Can you say a new bond measure for libraries? [img]graemlins/berry.gif[/img] We can't even fix our sewer problems let alone pay for stuff and people like this.

Government and their priorities. [img]graemlins/dork.gif[/img]

[TheRogue]

Thanks for the clarification, SH...I see what you're saying now.

TR