Salaries are big, but they are also reasonable
Editorial

The province last week released the annual list of employees in the provincial public sector who made more than $100,000 last year.

The list can be accessed at the provincial government's Web site, by choosing "finance" under ministries (that's how we found it). Consult the list, and if you have friends, neighbours or relatives on the public payroll, and if they made more than 100 grand last year, you can find out exactly how much they were paid, complete with benefits. Precisely what you're going to do with such information escapes us for the moment, but have fun anyway.

There's no mistaking the obvious fact that this list grows every year. That shouldn't be too surprising, however. Inflation is part of life. The price of everything eventually goes up (filled the gas tank in your car lately?), and that includes the price of services provided to the public, and the price paid to those who provide the services.

There was a time when this newspaper would have published the names of all the people serving this municipality and the surrounding area who made more than $100,000, at the local, Regional, police, school board, hospital (etc.) levels. This year, we are only naming those who work at the very local level, as well as those at the very, very top in other levels. To do anything else would take up most, if not all, if not more of this edition of the paper.

Yes, there are a lot of people on the public payroll making a good chunk of change for the services they render, and there are probably a number of you reading this who might be a little jealous. That's understandable, but we have to apply a bit of perspective to it all too.

Many of these people have undergone years and years of training to qualify themselves for the positions they currently occupy, and a lot of them have been on the job for a good number of years. Training, re-training, updating said training and seniority usually add up to bigger pay cheques in any field, be it in the private or public sector. The is no such thing as a qualified person who owes an apology to anyone because he or she managed to land a well-paying job.

As well, these people often have to deal directly with the public, which is not nearly as simple as it might sound. Members of the public can often be loud, obnoxious, ignorant, rude, ill-informed, impatient, unreasonable, intolerant of facts they don't want to hear and unwilling to listen, especially when they are dealing with people they believe are supposed to serve them. And when they are dealing with public employees, as long as they are not violating laws or resorting to obscene language, etc., these people usually have to take the abuse.

As well, these many of these employees have to deal with frequent calls from the media, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on which side of the conversation you happen to be on.

There are some in the media who would tend toward a "hogs at the trough" analogy when referring to these people, usually a clear sign the editorial writers couldn't think of a better topic on which to comment. We're inclined to look upon them more as people who are well-paid to do various jobs upon which we all depend.

Of course, if you think people can be found to do the job for less money, you might find yourself in a position some day to bring that about. But don't blame us if you find the jobs are not being done as well.