Doing the Board Walk
Where do old politicians go to die? To the board. In New Jersey’s Bergen County, that could be the Bergen County Planning Board. Or the Bergen County African-American Board. Or the Bergen County Technical School Board. Or the Bergen County Board of Social Services. Or the Bergen County Community Oversight Board.
Or it might not be a board at all. Some former Bergen Democrats, over 100 by count, were appointed to county positions by the five county Democrats who were voted out of office on Nov. 2nd. Some are figurehead positions while others are managerial in nature, with command over hundreds of government employees and millions of dollars in government – no, taxpayers’ – assets, particularly public employee pension funds.
Such public entities as the Bergen County Ethics Board, the Workforce Investment Board, and the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority are kind of like retirement villages for public officials with no useful purpose. The government certainly takes care of its own. Dumont, N.J., Mayor Matthew McHale was appointed as Executive Director of the Bergen County Improvement Authority.
McHale has experience as an executive director; he served in that capacity for the Bergen County Democratic Organization. The BCIA is the county’s primary bonding agency. He’ll earn a mere $85,000, the Bergen Record informs us; his predecessor earned $157,000. Undoubtedly, McHale will receive generous pay raises and bonuses.
The new director of the Bergen County Utilities Authority is Robert Laux. The former county administrator and county counsel under the Democratic County Executive has a five-year contract, starting at $145,000, that will guarantee raises every year of his term. Wow, it would be wonderful if my company guaranteed me a raise every year. I have to earn my raises, though.
8th District U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell defends the practice of lame-duck appointments, claiming they were fairly straightforward, according to The Bergen Record. “The law is the law,” he says. “The new county executive has the right to protest the appointments” but as long as the proper procedures were followed, there’s nothing anyone can do about them.
William Schluter, of the state Ethics Commission, notes that political employees often take on appointed positions after their party has lost control to remain vested in the state pension system. They just can’t let go of the government apron strings, in other words. Private sector employees don’t have that luxury. Once they’re laid off, that’s it; that’s the cut-off for their pension. If a private sector employee loses their job, due to a layoff, they too, can depend upon the government – again, the taxpayers – for awhile. A short while, a fund to which the terminating company must contribute – and then that’s it. They’re on their own.
What’s particularly appalling about this scheme is not so much that they’re government employees – or former employees – but that they’re political hacks. Their jobs were to protect the interests of the party that elected the official under whom they were working.
Why are we, the taxpayers, footing the bill for all of this? Let the political parties create pension funds for their own hacks. Why do we owe people we didn’t even vote for a living? Especially people whose careers have been devoted to destroying the free enterprise system that has employed us and provided them with tax-paid jobs?
Pascrell claims it’s done all the time. Maybe it’s time to be done with it altogether.
I hope my faithful readers – from all over the globe – will forgive me for missing the Sunday post. Sunday served as our family’s New Year’s Day dinner. I was so busy putting away Christmas decorations (believers in the 12 days of Christmas have only until Jan. 5th; after that, it’s bad luck) and making dinner that I had no time to write my blog My older brother leaves his tree permanently decorated.
Or it might not be a board at all. Some former Bergen Democrats, over 100 by count, were appointed to county positions by the five county Democrats who were voted out of office on Nov. 2nd. Some are figurehead positions while others are managerial in nature, with command over hundreds of government employees and millions of dollars in government – no, taxpayers’ – assets, particularly public employee pension funds.
Such public entities as the Bergen County Ethics Board, the Workforce Investment Board, and the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority are kind of like retirement villages for public officials with no useful purpose. The government certainly takes care of its own. Dumont, N.J., Mayor Matthew McHale was appointed as Executive Director of the Bergen County Improvement Authority.
McHale has experience as an executive director; he served in that capacity for the Bergen County Democratic Organization. The BCIA is the county’s primary bonding agency. He’ll earn a mere $85,000, the Bergen Record informs us; his predecessor earned $157,000. Undoubtedly, McHale will receive generous pay raises and bonuses.
The new director of the Bergen County Utilities Authority is Robert Laux. The former county administrator and county counsel under the Democratic County Executive has a five-year contract, starting at $145,000, that will guarantee raises every year of his term. Wow, it would be wonderful if my company guaranteed me a raise every year. I have to earn my raises, though.
8th District U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell defends the practice of lame-duck appointments, claiming they were fairly straightforward, according to The Bergen Record. “The law is the law,” he says. “The new county executive has the right to protest the appointments” but as long as the proper procedures were followed, there’s nothing anyone can do about them.
William Schluter, of the state Ethics Commission, notes that political employees often take on appointed positions after their party has lost control to remain vested in the state pension system. They just can’t let go of the government apron strings, in other words. Private sector employees don’t have that luxury. Once they’re laid off, that’s it; that’s the cut-off for their pension. If a private sector employee loses their job, due to a layoff, they too, can depend upon the government – again, the taxpayers – for awhile. A short while, a fund to which the terminating company must contribute – and then that’s it. They’re on their own.
What’s particularly appalling about this scheme is not so much that they’re government employees – or former employees – but that they’re political hacks. Their jobs were to protect the interests of the party that elected the official under whom they were working.
Why are we, the taxpayers, footing the bill for all of this? Let the political parties create pension funds for their own hacks. Why do we owe people we didn’t even vote for a living? Especially people whose careers have been devoted to destroying the free enterprise system that has employed us and provided them with tax-paid jobs?
Pascrell claims it’s done all the time. Maybe it’s time to be done with it altogether.
I hope my faithful readers – from all over the globe – will forgive me for missing the Sunday post. Sunday served as our family’s New Year’s Day dinner. I was so busy putting away Christmas decorations (believers in the 12 days of Christmas have only until Jan. 5th; after that, it’s bad luck) and making dinner that I had no time to write my blog My older brother leaves his tree permanently decorated.
posted by Belle | 5:43 PM
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