As a twenty-two year veteran of the state agency that ensures the safety & well-being of children and families, I am highly incensed. My colleagues and I, hard working, caring people all, have been given a paltry 1% pay increase effective at the turn of the fiscal year. I'm sorry I don't happen to be a football, basketball, or baseball coach at one of our public universities, where the contract of one such individual has now been extended beyond when my youngest will finish her four year degree...with a salary approaching TWO MILLION dollars a year!
Cue up the 1932 hit song: "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (Bing Crosby croons it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaZ04GL6gNw)
This news, coupled with having had one of the busiest work & on-call weeks I've had in many years, trying to secure safe placements for children under the age of 18--to wit, two consecutive Saturday nights' slumbers interrupted rudely by the need for me to either travel nearly 200 miles round trip or to wake other people by making telephone calls well past midnight, numerous children being removed from their biological families during the spring break week for our local public schools, and disruptive teenaged boys who refuse to follow rules in placement A for whom finding a placement B has been akin to locating the Golden Fleece...especially when they refuse to part with prized electronic possessions to be accepted into a bed!
From the SC State Employees Association web page, I share the following information:
The picture is not so rosy for state employees in South Carolina.
The integrity of the employee classification and compensation system has not kept pace with inflation or market conditions
through either legislative appropriations or by increasing the flexibility of agencies to manage pay policies.
Employees have taken on more duties and responsibilities but are earning less.
Changes in employee health insurance premiums and changes in retirement have further eroded the employment venue.
The current system is plagued by severe salary compression and market lag behind private sector and local government for most
jobs.
By the Numbers:
35,173 Total Number of Employees in Band 1 to Band 10
30,790 Employees Earn Less Than $50,101 (87%)
26,026 Employees Earn Less Than $39,692 (74%)
18,425 Employees Earn Less Than $32,448 (52%)
The most recent figures from the South Carolina Department of Administration Workforce plan below, shows that roughly 75% of
state employees earn below $40,000 annually.
Someone please explain WHY ball-sport coaches at USC & Clemson, FELLOW STATE EMPLOYEES, command million dollar-plus salaries per year for, effectively, playing games, while other state agencies are fortunate to even be considered for a paltry 1% raise? Are state government's priorities just a tad out of whack here, that they won't pay people who look after our next generation of South Carolinians but they managed to burp out handfuls of hundred dollar bills to COACHES?!
Something is definitely askew when we pay grown men a fortune to play with balls but do not prioritize the needs of vulnerable children.
