SEPARATION: Pay people what they're worth

Voluntary Separation: It appears to be a great thing both for the city and for those who work there. The employee gets some sort of settlement and the city saves money on salaries.

Human Resources Director Melissa Tossi is quoted as saying: “We are able to save taxpayers money through this because a longtime employee will have accrued a high wage and other benefits.”

This being so one has to ask the question as to why the city would release someone who is a great financial benefit to the city. Could it be that because of the way wages are determined a longtime employee is actually paid more than he is worth?

There seems to be little doubt that the longer a person works in a job the more he is actually worth. So why would they pay him to retire?

If wages were actually increased based on the value of their work rather than some more or less lock step salary increase you would think the city would actually want to keep them as long as they could.

This same program is actually applied to teachers as well. It appears that it is cheaper to hire someone else for the job than to keep the incumbent in that position. That actually makes very little sense, and in some cases causes employee concern as they reach the point where they are actually worth less than they are paid.

This does not appear to be common in industry, but only in government positions. Taxpayers would save money if the best person for the job is actually hired for that job. If a person comes to the point where he cannot work as well as he did before he can be kept in service but paid a lower wage; a wage equal to his value.

Why not pay people what they are actually worth rather than a salary schedule.

JIM HOLLINGSWORTH

Hayden