#27 - Salary
Talking about salary is really adventurous. No matter what you say, you’re going to offend someone.
One corporate executive (who annoyingly spent the entire day pontificating and quoting Peter Drucker books so he would sound smart) said, “What you see depends on where you sit.” Probably true. If you don’t make enough money, you feel “used” and taken advantage of. If you make too much, you sort of duck and hope nobody notices and then does something about it. If you pay too little, you spend all your time justifying why you can’t or why they don’t deserve any more than that. If you pay too much, you’re either generous or stupid.
For some people, salary is simply a budget item and for other people salary is very personal. If you’re paying. then salary is just a budget item. If you’re getting paid, it’s important - it means anything from you’ll eat tomorrow to “now I can buy that next extravagance.”
Salary is not always what it seems. A compensation package can be just the salary or can include any combination of benefits. The actual total value of a compensation package might be much more that just the salary by itself.
Direct Salary
Compensation for Location or Cost of Living
Incentives or Bonus
Health Insurance and Benefits
Pension anf Retirement Contributions
Automobile or Transportation Allowance
Miscellaneous Allowances
Time Off (Holidays, Vacation, Maternity and Sick Days, etc.)
Flexible Work Hours and Work-At-Home
Child Care (or Allowance)
Educational Allowance
Miscellaneous Perks or Stipends
Fair Exchange - There is such a concept as fair exchange. It depends on things like conditions of the local labor market work experience, education and similar qualifications. It means paying a fair wage for the work being done. The other side of it is performance. Did they do the job? Did they perform up to expectation? Fair pay for a job well done.
Another dimension (for some) of the subject of salary is living wage. Is the person able to live on the salary? Can they pay for basics like housing, clothing, food or transportation. The best solution would be to let the market settle out so that people make enough money.
Another issue is Competitive Pay. In any organization - public or private - it has to pay enough to be competitive in the local market. You can pay less, but the quality of the work might be substandard - you get what you pay for!
Another issue for many is privacy. Few people would argue that a private (not federal, state or local government) company should not be required to expose salary information. Federal,state and local governments should be transparent because it’s taxpayer money and a public service or regulating body.
Plenty to consider. Further complicating the matter and complicating being able to compare state-to-state is the wide variance in the cost of living by state. There are vast differences in housing, transportation, utilities, food and other commodities from one place to another.
Driving further confusion is the effect of unions on teacher salaries.The unions have become big and influential with regard to teacher salaries.
Conclusion: For all the reasons listed above, it’s hard to say that his level or that level of salary is right. Smart management and good salary administration can solve most salary problems including inequities and competitiveness. Having said that, the view here is that salaries should be viewable by the public. Yes, privacy is a valid argument, but if privacy is essential to you, go to work for a private organization. If we can’t have visibility of specific salaries for each person, at least show us salary scales showing specific positions and the ranges for any and all teaching jobs. The salaries of many top government officials are public. Everyone knows what the President makes. We deserve to know how much of our hard-earned tax money is being paid for teachers. All jobs in the schools and school administration, part-time and full-time and exempt and none exempt, should be subject to public visibility.
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