I haven’t seen many people talk about this on here, but I want to share with everyone the horrors of working in local governments.
I work in a city of about 100,000 in a public facing capacity, balancing project management and constituent services. Every day I have to respond to angry phone calls, death threats, residents threatening to jump over the counter and beat me up, etc, all while also managing a wide variety of special projects and initiatives in my department with tight deadlines. To say it’s stressful is an understatement. Many days I have to finish work at home (with no overtime pay) in order to meet deadlines for the mayor or department heads. Many weeks are 50-60 hours total.
What do we get for all this work? Staggeringly low pay. My salary is $41,900 a year, when the minimum cost of living here is $50,000. Also, for reference, similar positions in similarly sized cities make between $65,000-$80,000, and private sector usually starts at $90,000. Not surprisingly, many colleagues have quit for better jobs, and we’ve been struggling to replace them, especially in critical and important roles. This has shifted extra work on our plates.
While our mayor and administration agree our salaries must go up, the city council doesn’t see a need. The mayor proposed 20% raises for most positions (to get to at least $50k) and adding staff to spread out workloads.
What many people don’t realize is that most salaries are decided based on what the council approves, rather than performance or length of employment. You could be the best local government employee for 40 years, but if council doesn’t think you’re important, you might never get a raise. For this budget, several council members have stated that our work is not deserving of a raise based on their opinions (rather than evidence), and are planning to vote down any salary increases. Coming out of a pandemic with inflation and increased cost of living, I will not get any raise and will most likely default on bills next year.
This is the sad reality for thousands of us local government employees. We love serving and giving back to our communities, trying every day to make life better for all. Yet, despite all we do, we are portrayed as villains and undeserving of basic human rights and compensation. Keep this in mind as your local town goes through budget season this year.