SALVAGE: How to fix it

Your Oct. 23 editorial about salary salvage was most informative, but you seem to have overlooked an important detail: Title 31, Ch. 16 Idaho Code sets forth the rules for establishing salaries and other compensation for employees. Your comment: “Had the bonuses been budgeted, nobody would have lifted an eyebrow” puts the proper limit on the activities you described. That is: Idaho Law does not provide a legal basis for the County Clerk’s actions.

In addition to that, Idaho’s Constitution is very specific in the second part of Article 7, Section 10: “…or using the same (public money) for any purpose not authorized by law, by any public officer, shall be deemed a felony, and shall be punished as provided by law.”

So, it seems to me, not only are we looking at a practice that is a “slap in taxpayer faces,” but something that is patently illegal as well.

The only thing that is likely to stop this sort of madness is an uprising among the taxpayers with subsequent losses at the ballot box. I do hope the taxpayers will remember all of this when they switch to their other function and become voters.

THOMAS R. MACY

Post Falls