Out of touch with reality

COLUMBUS

A show of hands, please: How many of you have received $15,000 pay raises in the past nine months?

How about $14,000? Or $11,000? Or even $2,400?

I’m betting there aren’t many middle class Ohioans working in the private sector who have received 4 percent-to-33 percent increases in their pay this year.

And I’m betting there aren’t many middle class Ohioans in the private sector who took home paychecks this summer fattened by thousands of dollars in bonus payments.

Regular people

The regular people I rub shoulders with at church and the grocery store and my kids’ soccer games are struggling to make ends meet. Many are taking home less now than they did three or four years ago. Some don’t even have jobs or any hope of regular paychecks in the foreseeable future.

That’s why it’s baffling that any public office-holder would think it’s a good idea to give raises to people on their staffs who are already taking home six-figure incomes.

But that’s exactly what Senate President Tom Niehaus agreed to do a couple of months ago — give double-digit raises to six of the already-highest-paid people working for the chamber’s Republican and Democratic caucuses.

The chief of staff is making $138,507, a 12 percent increase over the $123,510 he earned previously, according to a spreadsheet compiled by the Senate.

Four others, including the minority party chief of staff, now are taking home $106,000-$116,000 a year.

In total, 19 people (10 Republican staffers and nine Democratic staffers) received pay increases.

They also received bonus payments this summer to make up for the fact that their raises didn’t take effect until July or August.

It should be noted that the Republican-controlled Ohio House has not raised caucus staff pay rates this year and has no plans to do so, according to the GOP Caucus spokesman.

The Senate raises were given after the passage of the $56 billion state budget, which was written, we were told repeatedly, to fill a purported $8 billion deficit.

Adding insult to injury, the Senate raises were issued after lawmakers blocked attempts to cut their own pay by 5 percent, a mostly symbolic step to help elected officials feel the same pocketbook pinch that other Ohioans have experienced.

The situation prompts a number of questions — primarily, what in the world are these people thinking?

Competition

To his defense, Niehaus cited increased pay scales and competition with other public and private sector offices as justification for the raises. The Republican sweep of statewide offices last year apparently led to a run on quality Senate staffers, who found higher-paying jobs elsewhere.

And Democrats say the need for parity in pay between the parties justifies submitting and accepting pay raises of their own.

In a different year, under different economic circumstances, those explanations might have held water.

But under current conditions, it sounds like typical nonsense from politicians who are out of touch with the people they represent.

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.