County commissioners approve pay increases for themselves
December 21, 2010 at 3:31 pm in Worthington Daily Globe
WORTHINGTON Just days before two county employees lose their jobs and another two have their hours cut, Nobles County commissioners on Tuesday approved a pay increase for themselves. Continue Reading
The arrogance of the commissioners is hilarious! It never siezes to amaze me how self serving they can be and never have their actions questioned by anybody. Whatever happened to checks and balances? When the tax payers don’t keep a lid on the cookie jar, it becomes a self serving feeding frenzie.
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A pay increase? Nice. I’m sure everyone with regular jobs wished they could vote themselves a pay increase to help cover their rising insurance premiums.
Two employees lose their jobs and 2 more have their hours cut due to budget cuts, and the rest of you get a pay increase. How do you look at yourselves in the mirror? Too bad those 4 people didn’t get a chance to vote for their jobs or for your pay increases.
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Vern, my insurance premium went up 30%, my deductible doubled and my out of pocket max doubled! That’s one hell of a bite! Some insurance reform! Reform scares me! Really Vern, do you think I received a raise to pay for it? Not! Vern I am also the one paying for your insurance! Something STINKS here, if I need to take it in the shorts then so should you! The buying power for the privet sector as decreased drastically in recent years while the salaries of the government have doubled! Time to bend over buddies! All of these salaries need to be cut, not raised, stupidly like this is what is killing US.
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Commissioner Lestico uses the excuse of the increase in insurance premiums as the reason for the increase in pay. These people are in the position to recommend looking for alternate insurance coverage. Why are they not? An increase of $800 for insurance premiums is a significant increase. Why not shop around and find better and cheaper insurance. That is what everyone else does. The commissioners are part time but yet make 17,510 a year. There are people in the area that don’t make that working full time and the commissioners also are not telling you about the additional money they receive for going to meetings. This is referenced in the other Nobles County article in todays paper. For those that are not aware, $100.00 per diem means that every time they attend a meeting they get $100.00. It does not specify that the meetings have to be an all day meeting. They can attend quite a few meetings in a year to really increase their pay. There is something wrong with this system and then they have the audacity to complain that their insurance premiums have increased!! Instead lets cut jobs and hours all the while planning to give ourselves an unbudgeted increase. If the rest of the county dept. heads did this, the commissioners would strike it down instantly.
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The Daily Globe needs to follow up on this story and find out how much each commissioner and the county administrator was compensated last year. This would be wages, per deim, ect, then you would get the whole picture of how badly things are out of control in this county. I was reading the Willmar paper on line this morning and I see that the commissioners in kandiyohi county voted to keep their wage and per deim the same as last year no increase, they have been at the same level since 2008 level ($70) a day per deim.
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The five members on the board will see their commissioner salaries increase from $17,000 to $17,510 as of Jan. 1. Commissioner Vern Leistico, who requested the 3 percent increase, said it still will not be enough to cover the more than $800 increase they will see in their costs for insurance in the coming year.
“Really, we’re going to be in the hole from where we were last year,†Leistico said.
Welcome to the real world you pop tart. You have the luxury of your salary paid by John and Jane Doe taxpayer. How self obsorbed can you be to complain that your health insurance is going up? What about people that are forced to take a PAY CUT and have their costs go up. Typical self obsorbed public sector leach……..
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Well, I hope the Commissioners can sleep better tonight after providing for themselves at the expense of others. I just do not know how their wage increase can be justified. You give yourself a wage increase then point out that it does not even cover the increased cost of insurance. At least you have insurance and an income; the two employees who were laid off will not be so lucky and likely neither will be the others who have had their hours cut. If that is not greed, then I guess I don’t understand what greed is. How is it that most employers have frozen wages but the Commission can justify an increase for themselves thereby allowing the budget shortfall to be even bigger? I believe your priorities are mixed up and you ALL should revisit your last wage approval. You are elected to serve in the best interests of the people in the county, but you have done the opposite and also put your own interests first.
I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I can only wish the best for those who just lost their jobs or had their hours cut. I wonder what they will be doing for Christmas? I hope they don’t need insurance. After all, the Commissioners can feel confident that they have what they need.
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This sends a message to the voters of Nobles County to those who are paying attention. The message is loud and clear. Greedy and fiscally irresponsible.
You worry about covering your insurance costs, commissioners? What about the people you represent?
The US Congress didn’t even take their automatic pay raise for the second year in a row.
“To raise congressional pay at a time when so many families are still struggling to make ends meet would be unconscionable and glaringly out of touch,†said (Harry) Mitchell (D-Ariz.)in a statement on Friday after the measure was signed into law.
“This sends an important message,†he said. “The American people are not getting a raise this year and neither should Congress.â€
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Ahhhhh, Vern you didn’t happen to vote for that insurance increase, DID YOU? I’m pretty sure the mayor and the rest of your cohorts did.
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I believe the self serving pay raise of the Nobles county commissioners should be an impeachable offense. Unless they pull a rabbit out of their hat and do something amazing for the benefit of the people of Nobles county, this self serving pay raise cannot be justified.
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Here is something that should be said. What just took place in November? A general election. There were 3 seats open. Unfortunately, no one ran against the incumbent commissioners. This was the residents of Nobles County’s chance to change what is happening here. The timing of this wage increase is quite fortunate also. Not another election for 2 years. The commissioners counted on this. Obviously people forget about what has happened in the past and by the time the election rolls around again no one will run and nothing will change. It is extremely frustrating.
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Who is willing to step up and hold these Commissioners and administrator accountable, the media is the watch dog for the people will they step it up? I hope so keep up the good work on keeping us informed!!!
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Your all worried and rant about this but say nothing about this? Where are your priorities? Only local?
Your hard-earned money is being used to pay those greedy members of congress a salary of $174,000 a year – - – and you also give them a very generous office allowance, a “gold-plated” healthcare plan, a fantastic pension, an extremely liberal expense account, and many other elitist perks. But they typically only work 90 days a year. Wow! What a great job!
And why do you pay them so much? So that they can pass legislation that you don’t want, bail out their friend’s failing banks and corporations (with your money), take over your healthcare plan, and force you to pay higher income taxes. What a great deal, huh?
Yet, while you (the dirty commoners and astro-turfers) sweat your butts off just to pay your rent, they treat you like despicable servants. And like fools, you continue to pay them like kings!
The real unemployment rate is near 17% (because it includes those who don’t qualify for unemployment benefits), yet your fearless leaders in congress needs another pay raise! As if what you have already sacrificed to pay for their gluttony isn’t enough, they still expect you to suffer more! Don’t you wish you could give yourselves a pay raise every time they raised your taxes?
A $4,000 Pay Raise
Members of Congress are adding another 2% pay raise for themselves in the $1.1 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill in 2010 (that you’ll have to pay) – - – and that’s on top of everything else they are forcing you to finance, such as their Cap and Trade scheme.
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Your hard-earned money is being used to pay those greedy members of congress a salary of $174,000 a year – - – and you also give them a very generous office allowance, a “gold-plated” healthcare plan, a fantastic pension, an extremely liberal expense account, and many other elitist perks. But they typically only work 90 days a year. Wow! What a great job!
And why do you pay them so much? So that they can pass legislation that you don’t want, bail out their friend’s failing banks and corporations (with your money), take over your healthcare plan, and force you to pay higher income taxes. What a great deal, huh?
Yet, while you (the dirty commoners and astro-turfers) sweat your butts off just to pay your rent, they treat you like despicable servants. And like fools, you continue to pay them like kings!
The real unemployment rate is near 17% (because it includes those who don’t qualify for unemployment benefits), yet your fearless leaders in congress needs another pay raise! As if what you have already sacrificed to pay for their gluttony isn’t enough, they still expect you to suffer more! Don’t you wish you could give yourselves a pay raise every time they raised your taxes?
A $4,000 Pay Raise.
Members of Congress are adding another 2% pay raise for themselves in the $1.1 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill in 2010 (that you’ll have to pay) – - – and that’s on top of everything else they are forcing you to finance, such as their Cap and Trade scheme.
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Well, could you maintain two homes, one of them in Washington, for that money? I’m with you on the health care, though: let ‘em pay for their own to see what we regular folks are dealing with. Same thing with the pensions: the gov. of New Jersey has just come out against pensions so perhaps those could go and they couldset up IRAs, like the rest of us. However, I doubt that anybody in congress works only 90 days a year. There are committee meetings, staff meetings, meetings with constituents in Washington at home, and the travel back and forth between home districts and Washington…… It’s always easy to claim other people in other jobs don’t work very much: want to give it a try?
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Here are why Democrats are so dumb and keep voting local, State and Federal employees to run our country! This is AWESOME for farm families isn’t it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhKNJU5TLFg&feature=player_embedded
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Not to mention drug abuse among the commissioners. But the Globe conveniently prints and on line about a mayors arrest for drugs, BUT FAILS to mention facts about our dear leader! Oh, but that’s different right? Wake up America, it’s NOT just LOCAL!!
Years later in his 1995 memoir, he alluded to smoking “reefer†in “the dorm room of some brother†and talked about “getting high.†Before Occidental, he indulged in marijuana, alcohol and sometimes cocaine as a high school student in Hawaii, according to the book. He made “some bad decisions†as a teenager involving drugs and drinking, Senator Obama, now a presidential candidate, told high school students in New Hampshire last November.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI&feature=related
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