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Sunday Poll: Should The License Collector Get A Raise?

February 21, 2016 Featured, Politics/Policy, Sunday Poll 6 Comments
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Missouri House Bill 2469, to increase the annual salary of the License Collector, was in the news earlier this month:

State Rep. Penny Hubbard has filed legislation that would nearly double St. Louis License Collector Mavis Thompson’s salary, taking it from $64,130 to $120,000. (Post-Dispatch)

Hubbard introduced the bill on February 2nd, but withdrew it just six days later on February 8th.

Some other citywide salaries I could find online:

  • Collector of Revenue $161,679
  • Circuit Attorney $152,672
  • Mayor $131,820
  • Comptroller $113,190
  • Recorder of Deeds $97,000

At the time this created lots of online discussion, likely causing Hubbard to withdraw the bill.  The topic is the subject of today’s poll:

Answers are presented in random order — or you can supply your own answer if you don’t like those provided. The poll closes at 8pm.

— Steve Patterson

 

Currently there are "6 comments" on this Article:

  1. Mark-AL says:

    I’m sitting here not quite believing what I’m reading. Here’s a gal with an AA degree, and her St Louis constituents are considering paying this woman $120,000.00 a year to perform in a patronage position. I would guess that over half the working population of ST Louis doesn’t earn much more than $50,000.00 a year!!! What is typically required of an AA degree? It’s a 2-year degree, heavy on humanities, social science, mixed with a few hours of math and science. In my college days, that sort of curriculum was referred to as “shared ignorance”. Our grade school and high school teachers, with bachelors and masters degrees, don’t earn even HALF the salary that this woman thinks she deserves, for god’s sake! And our teachers interact daily with our children–supposedly our PRIZED commodity!!! St Louis has been wrestling for years with budgets; policemen and firemen are all pitifully underpaid; teachers are forced to buy classroom supplies out of their own pockets; streets are a disaster; bridges are noticeably crumbling; St Louis stands to lose its major single source of income if the earnings tax initiative passes……and St Louis is even talking about the remote possibility of paying a city worker $120,000.00 annually to do a job that could easily be absorbed into another under-worked/under-performing patronage office down the hall! Now I’ve heard it all!

     
    • This is about the elected position, not the person currently holding the office.

       
      • Mark-AL says:

        Regardless! Unless the newly elected candidate has earned a PhD in whatever, there shouldn’t be even a discussion about paying a person in this position $120,000.00 a year! And then ask around to find out how many PhDs at local colleges earn $120,000 (!!!!!) a year! Where’s the incentive to strive for excellence when we pay our political “servants” on a scale disproportionate to that of their constituents?

         
      • Mark-AL says:

        And with an AA under her belt, the current office-holder shouldn’t be earning her $6X,XXX/year salary! What concrete past accomplishments can she lay claim to?

         
  2. gmichaud says:

    Lets be honest, too many city employees are overpaid. After that lady who managed pensions for the fire dept received something like a half million retirement bonus last fall it should be evident city government is incestuous and somehow always mange to take actions that benefit themselves and their buddies even if they don’t ever do anything else.
    I don’t care if they are elected or not, nor do I care what degree they have if they prove or have proven they can do an excellent job for the citizens.
    The fact is the city, and the region is still declining. Leadership is in short supply as is evident in the many discussions that occur on Urban Review.
    Lets be real, these people give each other raises and extra benefits because they can.
    If St. Louis was a kick ass city, creating great environments for its citizens then it might be one thing.
    There is no accountability and elections don’t seem to matter much since the same approved style of governance is the only real choice given in so called democratic elections. Megan Green speaks of the graft and she becomes a pariah, even though anyone who follows government activity at all sees the graft everywhere even as they try to hide it.
    When I see some one run on, or even speak about the fucking urgency of climate change and how it impacts what we are currently doing and the changes that need to be made then I might start believing these people are for real and deserve a raise. I don’t care if it the license collectors office of the collector of revenue,or the mayors office, it has become a system of taking care of insiders, that’s it. That’s all they really accomplish, and now they want to demolish the Dome. It is one idiotic move after another.
    There is no indication that St Louis is headed in the right direction, it is the same foolish policies that govern the region (the latest is Kroneke getting huge amounts of government funding for building on a flood plain in Maryland Heights, It is a doozy. This is not the city, but typical of the mindset that continually justifies handing over big bucks to people who are on the inside).
    It is one absurdity after another. The absurd jump from 60 grand to 120 grand salary is the symptom. The worst part is they (our rulers) will likely sneak it through when no one is looking. (Just like Maryland Heights will likely approve the Kroneke fiasco)
    It is impossible for any citizen to keep up with all of the graft. Meanwhile St Louis is dying, is anyone surprised?

     
    • Mark-AL says:

      Good post. Don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I’m not one to judge others based on their educational accomplishments, (but I do appreciate the value of education). But there needs to be some sort of criterion for selecting a worthy job candidate. In certain professions, a bachelor’s degree won’t even get a job applicant a job interview, and a master’s degree, or at least active/current participation in a master’s program, is an absolute. And we typically reward current employees who choose to continue to expand their horizons in the classroom. So I think society and the business world generally recognize the valuable contribution that education brings to the table. There’s a reason why we place minimum degree requirements for certain job categories, especially when incompetence may result in potential life-safety compromises. But obviously that standard does not apply in STL politics, among the hundreds (thousands?) of political patronage jobs that one can find at 12th and Market. Jobs there are given to politicians’ neighbors, friends, family members, lovers, hopeful lovers, wives of lovers, progeny of second- and third-generation politicians, brothers/sisters of politicians, city workers whose previous jobs evaporated when their long-time sugar-daddy elected official disappeared, etc, etc, etc… How can this cancer be allowed to continue? Sunday’s poll results suggest that–possibly–martyrdom is alive and well and quite acceptable in the river city. And so the master-degreed English teacher at Beaumont High School earns his lousy $59,000.00 a year, and some bimbo politician’s friend, with MAYBE an AA degree in underwater basket-weaving, might earn as much as or maybe more than $120,000 annually to baby sit an office of (probably) overweight and under-worked neighbors and friends of one of the local aldermen.

       

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