Traditionally, people sought government employment for job stability and benefits and traded that for a pay scale about 15% less than private business.
In the past 10 years, government employees have found that contracts have been renegotiated resulting in givebacks, unpaid furlough days to help balance budgets and large-scale layoffs.
New employees are often hired with different benefits and pension schemes than long term employees,
Government work still pays less than the private sector with the major exception of education. A public school teacher will earn far more and have much greater benefits that a teacher in a private school or Yeshiva.
In our community a teacher holding a Master’s Degree and 18 years of service (top of the contract scale) has a base pay of $92,000 per 186 workday year. This is not even close to the top pay rates here in Fairfield County.
At the other extreme, town janitors start at $11.35 per hour while the local McDonald’s pays 18 year old part time beginning workers $13.25 and help spay for college after 9 months employment.
I am painfully aware of local pay rates and benefits, as I’m a member of our Town Council and we have finally passed out budget which starts the fiscal year beginning July 1. New hires in management no longer are part of the Town Pension plan, instead they are forced into a defined benefit plan that is portable like a 401K. Unions lost their previous medical plans and are forced into the state employees plan which costs the employee more out of pocket and has less coverage. Except for classroom teachers and police, vacancies are not being filled…we still don’t know what funding form the State will be for the coming year, as they have not passed a budget in Hartford. We do not have municipal fire service, but volunteer fire companies.