Critics upset to see county raises up to 39.7%

[Eric1600]

http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2018/0...al-raises/

Salary Commission Chairman Hugh Ono gave a presentation to the Hawai‘i County Council Finance Committee on Tuesday in Kona, explaining how large – and highly criticized – raises for county administrators and elected officials were recently approved.

Basically they claim to be transparent and fixed a "long-standing problem" of under compensation (repeated multiple times). They presented no wage comparisons or explanations of the "problem". He said directors are not "EM" (?) so the director wages don't "jump up" like they do for "EMs". I guess EM is private sector because when unions negotiate raises their public counterparts fall behind.

O'hara grills them trying to find out how they managed to get sole authority to make these pay decisions. This boiled down to the voters giving them authority, but O'Hara had also researched all this and discusses the reason she has a proposed charter amendment to provide more public review.

The commission came to the conclusion that there was money for the raises and they did not have to consider the county budgets.

[kalakoa]

the conclusion that there was money for the raises and they did not have to consider the county budgets

Salaries are "mandatory spending", budget is irrelevant, taxes can be increased if necessary, or cuts made elsewhere to offset the higher salaries.

Unlike, say, design for a park in a private subdivision, which should have been cut from the budget.

[Kapoho Joe]

Chairman Ono and his less than tasty presentation were not well received by Council.