Entitlement Mentality On Full Display With Civil Service E-Mails (Updated, 2:17 p.m.)
Today’s Baton Rouge Advocate has a very revealing piece on the public employee mentality confronting Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in his attempts to slim down state spending on budget areas outside of health care and higher education. It seems that the state’s Department of Civil Service has released a set of e-mails it received from state employees voicing their concerns about Jindal’s plans to freeze pay increases as the state attempts to reconcile a billion-dollar budget shortfall (with a $2 billion deficit projected on top of this year’s number for the 2011-12 fiscal year).
Break out your violin before you read any further.
Some highlights from the e-mails:
“It seems as though the administration will not be satisfied until it buries rank-and-file state workers and the services they provide,” wrote Tad Hardy, a state government worker who, like most of the 100 or so commenting, used his home e-mail account to write Civil Service.
“The administration is still hiring unclassified employees at salaries topping $80,000 plus and the Civil Service Commission wants the classified employees to give up a deserved raise. Something is wrong here,” wrote Preston Pecue with the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
“Should others suffer unjustifiedly to achieve one person’s agenda?” employee Beverly Rush asked.
“If you want to save money, tell the governor to get rid of the unnecessary unclassified employees,” employee Stephen Guilbeau wrote.
“How do you expect the ‘average’ Civil Service worker to enthusiastically do his job with no reward while the Agency he or she works for continue to hire folk with excessive salaries, i.e., UNCLASSIFIED workers,” Alicia Birch wrote.
“How much more is going to be asked of some of the lowest paid employees in state service,’ asked Dean Morgan, a locksmith master. “Please remember that we also have families to support before you allow us to be denied our hard earned 4 percent.”
Other points the Advocate says are raised in the e-mails:
- The suspension of the pay raise would hurt the pension of employees close to retirement because their benefits are based on the last three years of pay.
- Many state government employees did not get a pay raise during the current year. Suspending next year’s raise would be unfair and put them further behind in the cost of living.
- State health insurance costs continue to rise annually so employees will be taking even more of a pay cut. The pay raises help offset the health-care premium increase, they said.
No one, not even the most rapacious and diabolical budget-slashers in Jindal’s inner circle, begrudges state employees honest pay for an honest day’s work. Nor does anyone suggest that the average salary of $41,000 per year paid to classified Civil Service employees is exhorbitant. And while most of the state’s unclassified employees are specialists with marketable expertise the state needs to run its operations, it’s a valid point that those employees aren’t faced with freezes – yet.
That said, perhaps the e-mailers in question don’t watch a lot of news or surf the internet for anything other than Asian porn or to get in on the latest Woot. Because if they did, they might realize that the economy is in the toilet and private-sector employees have long since dealt with layoffs, furloughs, pay cuts and companies going out of business. One reason to work in Civil Service is that you generally don’t deal with uncertainty like that, and the governor isn’t trying to impose the full range of private sector vagaries on the state’s employees.
But when there are budget cuts to be had, those squeaky wheels among the Civil Service ranks will find little sympathy from the rest of us for their inability to score raises.
Because given current realities, what those complaining about salary freezes are saying is that either their raises are more important than preserving higher education or health care for the uninsured, or their raises are more important than jobs or salaries of unclassified state workers, or – perhaps more central to the point – their raises are more important than the maintenance, rather than increase, of current tax rates.
Either way, their complaining comes off as ugly, immature, self-centered greed. If you’re not satisfied with pay or working conditions at your job, then GET A NEW JOB. People do it all the time, generally without whining, even in a bad economy.
And the state’s employees are going to find that their “real-world” counterparts will have little patience for the attitude demonstrated in those e-mails.
UPDATE, 2:17 p.m. – This morning the Civil Service Commission voted in favor of the governor’s proposed salary freeze, five votes to one with one abstention. According to the Advocate:
Several state employees blasted the decision, arguing the commission was folding to the wishes of the Jindal administration and lawmakers who they said helped cause the fiscal problems.
A couple of quick points here. First, the Jindal administration and those lawmakers were elected, and as such represent the will of the people of Louisiana who these state employees work for. So it’s entirely proper for the commission to “fold” to their wishes, which are OUR wishes in a representative democracy.
And second, the reason these state employees say that Jindal and the leges “helped cause the fiscal problems” is that they voted to do away with the Stelly tax which essentially raped and pillaged the state’s taxpayers over the last 15-20 years while Louisiana bled residents to states without income taxes. Repealing Stelly was a very popular move – so for the state workers to scream about how it “helped cause the fiscal problems” is one more manifestation of the mentality which holds that they’ve got a stronger claim on your income than you do.
Why should they automatically get raises? It's not as though inflation of the cost of living have increased in the last year. I guess they think we should just gut education more instead.
Why should they automatically get raises? It's not as though inflation of the cost of living have increased in the last year. I guess they think we should just gut education more instead.
When I read the referenced article, it touched a nerve that your post fully exposed. To Ryan's point, what cost of living increase have we experienced in today's economy that Civl Service workers need a raise to offset?
Because of this economy, I lost a good paying professional job, was unemployed for six months, drew down my retirement savings every month to maintain my mortgage and other committments, then accepted a job similar to the previous one, but at 11% less pay and accompanied with the requirement that I sell my home and move four hours away from my son. I have no sympathy for someone whose salary increase might be deferred for a while.
When I read the referenced article, it touched a nerve that your post fully exposed. To Ryan's point, what cost of living increase have we experienced in today's economy that Civl Service workers need a raise to offset?
Because of this economy, I lost a good paying professional job, was unemployed for six months, drew down my retirement savings every month to maintain my mortgage and other committments, then accepted a job similar to the previous one, but at 11% less pay and accompanied with the requirement that I sell my home and move four hours away from my son. I have no sympathy for someone whose salary increase might be deferred for a while.
A retired civil service employee but agree with many of the comments on the feeling of entitlement. We were denied merit increases before and it beats the hell out of a layoff which we went through in the 1980s.
What I'd like to see from Jindal is some leadership on the issue. Far as I know, gov teeple has not issued any gudiance to the CS Comm and I doubt Jindal has even said a word to them. What exactly is this elusive flexibility he's seeking? Stay home, Bobby, and deal with some of LA's problems, it's important…
James, we've already seen Jindal's style in dealing with contentious issues like this – namely, he moves in a specific direction and then gets out of the way while those under him slug it out and take all the cuts and bruises. He did it with the legislative pay raise, he did it with Mary Landrieu on the FMAP deal and he's doing it with Civil Service. It's a rather different approach than you would expect and it's not what we would consider effective leadership, but so far, strangely, it actually seems to work for him even though it drives everybody nuts.
A retired civil service employee but agree with many of the comments on the feeling of entitlement. We were denied merit increases before and it beats the hell out of a layoff which we went through in the 1980s.
What I'd like to see from Jindal is some leadership on the issue. Far as I know, gov teeple has not issued any gudiance to the CS Comm and I doubt Jindal has even said a word to them. What exactly is this elusive flexibility he's seeking? Stay home, Bobby, and deal with some of LA's problems, it's important…
James, we've already seen Jindal's style in dealing with contentious issues like this – namely, he moves in a specific direction and then gets out of the way while those under him slug it out and take all the cuts and bruises. He did it with the legislative pay raise, he did it with Mary Landrieu on the FMAP deal and he's doing it with Civil Service. It's a rather different approach than you would expect and it's not what we would consider effective leadership, but so far, strangely, it actually seems to work for him even though it drives everybody nuts.
[...] calculus would work like this – there are no raises this year, and the state employees are already furious about not getting raises. Right now, Jindal looks like the responsible conservative governor doing the best he can to make [...]
I just came across this article…mainly because I do watch news and do not surf the internet for Asian porn and idiotic websites such as this one. I tend to go to websites that people actually heard of…cnbc, cnn, 2theadvocate…and many other news/financial websites. I am one of the people that this article pointed out as one of the many emails the Advocate received. First off, I emailed it to the Civil Service Commission…not the Advocate. I wasn't told that our emails would be sent to the press as I would have thought twice about sending an email as I know how the press is. Bringing me to my second point, my one line that was quoted was completely taken out of context. It doesn't quote the part about me saying I am all for giving up my raises so Jindall wouldn't have to cut education. I am all about giving up my raises to help out the police and firefighters. That one sentence was just part of a paragraph explaining that the classified employees are targeted first and the unclassified employees just usually ride along, but we classifieds are the ones that are made out to be lazy cry babies.
And in reference to your comment on how the state's large number of unclassifieds are needed for specialty positions…no no no. Trust me, I am qualified for MANY unclassified positions. The ones I was referring to were those who were given jobs by the governor himself…and every governor before him. It isn't that a person is qualified…it is that the person had good connections. That is all. Unclassified positions are MOSTLY about who you know, not what you know. I am not crying about my raise being taken away this year, but it is funny how the press ALSO makes it seem that these raises are guaranteed to every one every year. They are not.
I am doing well, I am happy I have a job, but I do know there are other places to save money and still not cut education. To me, education is priority number 1…no matter what. Then security(police). To keep those two things going full force, I will gladly give up my merit pay increase every year! And when it comes time and I feel like I am not making as much as I should be, I will not cry. I will not beg for more. I will get out of here and go elsewhere.
I just came across this article…mainly because I do watch news and do not surf the internet for Asian porn and idiotic websites such as this one. I tend to go to websites that people actually heard of…cnbc, cnn, 2theadvocate…and many other news/financial websites. I am one of the people that this article pointed out as one of the many emails the Advocate received. First off, I emailed it to the Civil Service Commission…not the Advocate. I wasn't told that our emails would be sent to the press as I would have thought twice about sending an email as I know how the press is. Bringing me to my second point, my one line that was quoted was completely taken out of context. It doesn't quote the part about me saying I am all for giving up my raises so Jindall wouldn't have to cut education. I am all about giving up my raises to help out the police and firefighters. That one sentence was just part of a paragraph explaining that the classified employees are targeted first and the unclassified employees just usually ride along, but we classifieds are the ones that are made out to be lazy cry babies.
And in reference to your comment on how the state's large number of unclassifieds are needed for specialty positions…no no no. Trust me, I am qualified for MANY unclassified positions. The ones I was referring to were those who were given jobs by the governor himself…and every governor before him. It isn't that a person is qualified…it is that the person had good connections. That is all. Unclassified positions are MOSTLY about who you know, not what you know. I am not crying about my raise being taken away this year, but it is funny how the press ALSO makes it seem that these raises are guaranteed to every one every year. They are not.
I am doing well, I am happy I have a job, but I do know there are other places to save money and still not cut education. To me, education is priority number 1…no matter what. Then security(police). To keep those two things going full force, I will gladly give up my merit pay increase every year! And when it comes time and I feel like I am not making as much as I should be, I will not cry. I will not beg for more. I will get out of here and go elsewhere.