County pay

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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Linn County's sheriff and county attorney should get pay raises of 4 percent plus another $10,000 each, the county compensation board recently recommended. If the board of supervisors agrees, it would mean a raise of 11.1 percent for Jerry VanderSanden, now paid $140,033 as county attorney, and 12.7 percent more for Sheriff Brian Gardner, drawing $114,506.

Those increases would follow pay increases of 5 percent each last year, although no raises were approved for the previous two years.

Compensation board officials argue their recommendations are valid because the salaries need to be in line with what comparable people would get in the private sector. Otherwise, it's too difficult to retain well-qualified people for these challenging jobs.

We don't think that's enough reason to grant such a huge pay increase in one chunk. And serving in public office is not the same as working in the private sector, in part because taxpayers, not private customers, foot the bill. Candidates for public jobs understand the pros and cons, or at least they should.

That doesn't mean public officials shouldn't be fairly compensated. We need skilled, educated people in those positions more than ever. But double-digit raises?

Supervisors need to find more justification than private-sector comparisons to justify such increases.

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