Pay increase for Tablack is ill-timed, unnecessary

As Mahoning County commissioners contemplated giving Administrator George J. Tablack a pretty sizable pay raise they should have asked themselves this question: Will he leave county government if we say no? The answer is as clear as the economic recession the nation is bogged down in. Tablack isn’t going anywhere.

But if, by some inexplicable aligning of the financial stars, there had been an employer willing to pay Tablack $103,809 and provide a lucrative benefit package, commissioners David Ludt, Anthony Traficanti and John McNally should have wished him well and let him go.

Mahoning County government can’t afford George Tablack — not just because his $103,809 wage has been boosted by 3 percent a year going back to Jan. 1, 2006, and he has received a check for $16,027 in back pay, but because taxpayers in the private sector will not soon forget this ill-timed, unnecessary windfall when they are asked next year to renew a half-percent sales tax.

And, if commissioners Ludt, Traficanti and McNally have any thoughts about asking voters to make the tax permanent, they had better think again.

There’s another reason the county cannot afford Tablack. The raise they gave him has made it impossible for the commissioners to seek concessions and, heaven forbid, givebacks from union employees when it’s time to negotiate new contracts. In the La-La Land that is the public sector, wage cuts and layoffs have been the exception rather than the rule.

But the reality that has forced the private sector to change the dynamic of the workplace — wage freezes, health insurance premiums co-payments and higher deductibles, and, yes, workforce reductions — is now becoming evident in the public sector.

What is happening in the city of Warren — 39 layoffs, including a large number of police officers — will be repeated throughout the Mahoning Valley. Government is running out of money.

Gov. Ted Strickland has announced another round of cuts in the state budget early next year, and is warning of an even more difficult period next fiscal year. The belt-tightening will affect local governments.

Drying revenue streams

Even contracts that are not expiring may have to be reopened because revenue streams are drying up.

That is why Tablack’s raise is monumentally stupid. While the salaries of elected officials are set by the General Assembly, the county’s administrator/director of the Office of Management Budget is an at-will employee. The commissioners should have considered the will of the people — their bosses — before bumping Tablack’s salary north of the $100,000 line.

We would strongly advise Tablack and the commissioners to reconsider the raise. Failure to do so will simply put the sales tax renewal next year in jeopardy.

For those public employees who still don’t understand the concept of doing more with less, here’s a fact to ponder: In the past year, more than a million Americans lost their jobs.

And if that doesn’t impress you, turn to page B-4 of Friday’s Vindicator and read the story headlined, “Local-government workers hit hard by budget squeeze.” Here’s the opening paragraph:

“Cities and counties around Ohio are planning to shed government workers as falling tax revenues squeeze their budgets.”

A pay raise in the midst of a recession? Only in government.