Thursday, December 03, 2009
Editorial: Talk of bonuses despite hard times
Roanoke County officials worked out a compromise. That doesn't mean the deal is done.
From the RoundTable blog
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Over recent days, newspapers around the state have borne warnings from state lawmakers to the localities they represent: You're going to have to tighten your belts.
State revenues remain in the tank. Local tax receipts are uncertain because of the recession's lingering effects. Federal stimulus money, which has blunted the impact on essential services like schools, will run out.
Yet in Roanoke County on Tuesday, supervisors and school board members hammered out the framework of an agreement to hand out $500 bonuses to county employees in the new year.
This would not be prudent.
Oh, the desire is understandable. No county employees, including teachers, got raises this year. Given persistent wage and hiring freezes, the president of the Roanoke County Education Association said, morale has been low.
And, after all, a portion of the money was contributed by the employees themselves, their share of the cost of health insurance. The $1.2 million for school division bonuses and $589,000 for matching awards to other county employees would come from surpluses in health insurance reserve funds.
In today's harsh economic environment, though, the county should not tap any pool of reserve money for nonessential spending.
Bonuses -- as nice, and even deserved, as they might be -- are not essential.
Avoiding layoffs after stimulus dollars disappear -- that would be in the nature of an emergency that would justify raiding reserves.
County supervisors were worried enough about revenues that they initially resisted even holding a public hearing on teacher bonuses, which the school board presented as a virtual fait accompli.
Then Tuesday, representatives of both boards worked out what was billed as a compromise: paring bonuses for full-time school employees to $500 and extending them to all county workers. Still, Supervisor Richard Flora continued to voice fears about the possibility of future layoffs, while suggesting there'd be no local tax increase.
Supervisors will hold a public hearing Dec. 15 before voting on the plan. County residents should weigh in.
