The Fleecing of District Taxpayers Continues

The Washington Times today ran the first of a three part series on how much the District is doling out in salaries to city bureaucrats. Outrageously, the District (570,000 residents) has more bureaucrats making in excess of $100,000 than Baltimore (628,000 residents) and Chicago (4 millions residents) combined!

Compared with other cities of similar size, the District, with a population of 570,000, has seen staggering growth in its payroll, with 1,268 employees being paid an annual salary in excess of $100,000 -- up from 690 workers in 2002. In Baltimore, which has 628,670 residents and 15,500 city workers, 55 employees earned annual salaries of more than $100,000. Two of those employees earn salaries of more than $150,000. Even in Chicago, which has a population of nearly 4 million and 37,639 employees on the city payroll, 1,100 workers make $100,000 or more and 28 earn $150,000 or more.

Thats right, 1,268 District employees make more than $100,000! Unbelievably 55 city workers make more than $150,000!

And surprise, surprise, 92% of city workers are unionized:

Lisa Marin, who heads the D.C. Office of Personnel, said 92 percent of the jobs under the mayor's authority are union jobs that provide contractually negotiated pay raises. She said the city has been negotiating to make more pay raises merit-based instead of automatic.

"We're trying to fix -- to right-size -- our pay structure so we don't have those," she said, "so that it's not an entitlement to get a pay increase."

Thanks Lisa. Glad to see that the DC Office of Personnel is "trying" to make pay raises merit-based rather than automatic. What a concept!