Hard to justify high-dollar government jobs

Our View

Hard to justify high-dollar government jobs

We’ve brought this up before, but it is always interesting when the mainstream media hones in on how much of our tax dollars goes to pay the salaries of the thousands of state employees, particularly those earning over $100,000 a year.

With a state that has 2.9 million inhabitants and over 260,000 of them dependent upon some type of government subsidy, the fact that there are so many state government employees earning the salaries they do off our tax dollars it tends to raise a few eyebrows.

For example, the number of state employees whose salaries are at least $100,000 a year jumped by 137 to 2,722 this fiscal year.

In a report published recently in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, the annual growth has ranged from 119 in fiscal 2015 to 164 in fiscal 2011.

It was certainly interesting to also note that most of this fiscal year’s growth occurred at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, a teaching hospital where the number of state employees making at least $100,000 increased by 74 to 1,254. That increase is the largest at UAMS since fiscal 2011, when the number increased by 80 the newspaper reported.

And, the ranks at other higher-education institutions increased by 43, to a total of 1,083. Then we learned that among employees who work at state agencies other than higher-education institutions, 385 – an increase of 20 – earn six-figure salaries, the reported showed.

And just guess who is the highest-paid state employee. It is no other than Bret Bielema, who makes a whopping $4.1 million a year as the head football coach at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

Oh, and then there is his boss Athletic Director Jeff Long pulling in $1 million a year, while UA Chancellor Joseph Steinmetz takes home $450,000 a year.

In comparison, Gov. Asa Hutchinson now earns $141,000 a year. And, the number of employees who make at least $100,000 a year and work for state agencies other than higher education institutions increased by 20, to 385, in fiscal 2016.

We would think a lot of people would have to agree with Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, who said it is difficult to justify such growth during the past several years at those agencies.

Department of Human Services Director Cynthia Gillespie, the woman hired by Gov. Hutchinson to work out the scores of serious problems within the DHS was brought on board at a salary of $280,000 a year.

Let’s also keep in mind that in the fiscal legislative session that just adjourned, the Legislature and Hutchinson declined to provide funding for a cost-ofliving increase for these state employees in the next fiscal year, and we can certainly understand why.

Plus, the Legislature and Hutchinson included a $142.7 million increase in the state’s fiscal 2017 general revenue budget. We’re told most of that tax money will go to DHS and public schools.

While we expect these politicians and bureaucrats to throw out all sorts of reasons why these salaries are justified, the fact remains it is very difficult for the majority of hard working Arkansans in the private sector, and the over quarter of million people dependent upon government subsidies, to accept any so-called justification.

BIBLE VERSE

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

Corinthians 9:24-27

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