What's it all about, Altie?

If you didn't immediately think "Three High!" when Trumbull County Sheriff Thomas Altiere recently announced administrative pay raises, you haven't been paying attention to what's been happening in Mahoning Valley governments.
From now on, keep this important fact in mind whenever you read about public employee compensation: The average of the three highest annual wages is one of the factors used to calculate public pensions.
When Sheriff Altiere first revealed that he was giving six administrators in his department raises of more than 8 an hour over 39 months, the reaction was, "Has he lost his mind?"
Indeed, Trumbull County residents were so incensed that they confronted Commissioner Frank Fuda, demanding to know why he and his colleagues had allowed the sheriff to act in such an irresponsible manner. Fuda was forced to explain that commissioners have no control over how Altiere spends the money allocated to him.
But Fuda, Paul Heltzel and Daniel Polivka did convey the public's unhappiness to the sheriff.
Altiere got the message loud and clear, because before the dust had even settled he announced that he planned to reduce the raises to a level the public would find palatable.
Backstroke
It was during this backstroke that the issue of "Three High" became the subtext. The sheriff confirmed to a Vindicator reporter that two of the six administrators, Majors Bob Davis and Jim Phillips, planned to retire this year, while the retirement of a third, Chief Deputy Ernie Cook, may be on the horizon.
Under the sheriff's initial pay raise scheme, which would have been retroactive to October 2005, Cook's hourly rate would have shot up from 28.17 to 36.88 by the end of 2008 -- a whopping 31 percent increase. In 2006, he made 62,340; in 2008, his salary would have been 76,710 -- with all the supplementals included. The average of his three highest annual salaries would have been a whopper when his retirement took effect.
Majors Davis and Phillips each earned 60,834 a year and with the raises the sheriff had intended to give them, their annual salaries would have risen to 69,742. The three-year average would have made their departure from county government all the more sweeter.
But because of those jealous, miserly taxpayers, Cook, Davis and Phillips will have to settle for less than what they were anticipating. But even with less, these and the other three administrators will still be raking in a larger pay increase than the average raise received by workers in the private sector.
Indeed, with the retroactivity factor, the six don't deserve any sympathy. The first-year increase of 3.25 percent will be retroactive to Oct. 1, 2005, while the second year hike of 3.5 percent will be in effect from Oct. 1, 2006, to Sept. 30 of this year.
Thus. Cook's 28.17 an hour will increase to 30.11 an hour; Davis and Phillips will make 28.60 an hour, up from 26.83.
Other administrators enjoying the largess are Capt. Tom Stewart, who earned 67,457 last year; Leslie Stredney, personnel director, 55,028; and Rocco Vadala, administrative assistant, 41,957.
But what Altiere taketh away, Altiere can also giveth -- and so county government will pick up 8.5 percent of the Public Employees Retirement System contribution, instead of the usual 6 percent.
Thus, to the question "What's it all about, Altie?" the answer is clear: It's about padding the salaries of public employees so that when they retire they can laugh all the way to the bank.
But it isn't only Sheriff Altiere who is willing to be so generous with our -- read that private sector workers -- money.
Performance?
Compensation for public employees is rarely based on performance or ability. If it were, many individuals in government or other such entities would be paying us, based on the "crappy" -- remember former special prosecutor Jonathan Rosenbaum? -- condition of our communities.
And it isn't just at the local level where such padding occurs.
As controversy swirls around former state Rep. Sylvester Patton's 73,216-a-year position on the state Unemployment Compensation Review Board, the issue that has been lost has to do with his pension. Although he retired from First Energy after 21 years' service, he is building up his public retirement account through serving as a Youngstown city councilman, state representative and now a state review board member.
Patton's six-year term means that for pension purposes, the three-year salary average will be more than 70,000. Not bad work if you can get it -- purely on the basis of politics.