Sometimes it’s difficult to know if you are getting what you pay for. In this edition of the newspaper, a full-page chart indicates the annual wages of local and area cities and counties to see what exactly we are paying for.
Besides reporting information from Marion County and the cities of Hillsboro, Marion, Peabody, and Florence, the chart includes information from Dickinson and Rice counties and the cities of Herington and Lyons.
We have reported the findings from these surveys every three years, beginning in 2004. The 2010 wage information is compared with 2007.
It always surprises us to see which positions are overpaid and, yes, those that are underpaid compared with counties and cities similar in size.
In these tough economic times, it is still surprising to us that wages continue to increase for most taxing entities while private businesses struggle just to maintain the same or provide competitive wages to keep our employees.
So, are we getting what we’re paying for?
— susan berg