The heat is coming.
The fallout from the reports of the disgracefully high-paid Bell city employees is mounting.
Reporters
are digging. They want to know every detail of every dollar and any
crooked numbers will be exposed. They’re looking for corruption.
Exactly
what does the City Manager make and how many positions does he or she
hold? How much does a council member expense per year? The police chief
just retired, what will he or she take home as a pension?
The unearthing has already begun. My inbox is filled each day with
numerous allegations of corruption in a given city or county – "Hey,
look into what’s going on in this city."
People are angry.
Outraged. Sometimes for good reason, sometimes just to be outraged.
Local government employees are under the microscope more than ever.
Los Angeles Times reporter Catherine Saillant
– along with Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives – has done a brilliant job
investigating the city of Bell, and it’s just the beginning.
"We are getting tips everyday and following up," Saillant said in a phone interview.
"The public is so energized on this. I have never seen a response like this to a story and I’ve been a journalist for 23 years."
The
trust is broken at every level of government and it comes at a time
when taxpayers are counting every penny. So are local government
employees ready for the push for information?
"I think so," said Chris McKenzie, Executive Director of the League of California Cities, which as an organization publicly condemned
the city of Bell. "The old expression we use is that you get used to
living in a fish bowl. It goes with the turf, the public has a right to
know these things.
"It’s very frustrating that it comes from
a result of abuses that are beyond the pale and that managers will be
painted with the same brush."
The fact is that the majority of
city employees are compensated reasonable wages for extraordinary
services. Many aren’t paid nearly what they could earn in the private
sector. Local governments are not looking to hire power decision-makers
on the cheap, nor should they. Certainly you get what you pay for and
the last thing government needs is incompetence in leadership. But
that’s not always easy to explain on your heels. Be proactive. Be
accessible. Put it all out there.
Just as steroids destroyed the
integrity of sluggers in baseball, government employees now must prove
that their salaries are not juiced.
My advice to those
in local government already living in a fish bowl: embrace the bowl.
Make it easy for constituents to see your salaries. Post in on your Web
site. Control the information; don’t wait for reporters to come asking.
If you have earned the pay and deserve the pay, then say so.
If
you’re cheating the system and earning more than you’re worth, the
public is going to find out – now, probably sooner than later.
James Spencer can be reached at [email protected]