Raises some points about salaries stories

Dear Cody:

After reading the Ledger's articles regarding salaries and hourly wages, I felt it was necessary to bring out a few points your paper may not have addressed.

Every employer, at one time or another, has faced the problem of establishing fair wages and salaries. From a moral perspective, it is simple to say an organization or business should pay a fair and just wage but, what constitutes such a wage? There are so many variables involved that no one can say with mathematical certainty what any person, in any business, should be paid for a job. There are many factors which make a simple answer impossible. These include the competitive position of the company, individual needs, and the employees contribution to the company, just to name a few.

With respect to the salaries referenced in your articles, the teachers and administrators, judges, sheriff, and, yes, the Board of Public Works employees deserve a little more credit than your articles revealed. The teachers and administrators are helping shape the future of our children which, in turn, will affect our communities when they enter their adult lives. We need to have qualified professionals in these positions in order for our deserving children to have the education and social skills they need to be successful, responsible adults.

Qualified professionals come at a cost and, in my opinion, the teachers are grossly underpaid for the services they offer. Most all of your readers would not be able to afford or, for that matter, read your publication if it had not been for the teachers and administrators who taught and helped mold them into the people they are today.

The sheriff and judges all hold positions which involve high risk, great responsibility and dedication to their respective roles. High-risk jobs deserve a wage that reflects the hazards of the job. Not many people would like to take on the responsibility of making a decision of whether a parent is unfit for their child, sign a warrant for someone's arrest, or testify in a murder trial. The people in these roles should be respected for the decisions they have to make every day. Not everyone will agree with the decisions their roles force them to produce which is where risk is involved.

The Board of Public Works does an excellent job providing utilities to the residents of this county whether it is during working hours or not. The employees of the Board are dedicated (as your article quoted) most likely because they are treated fairly and are paid competitive wages for the tasks they perform each day. These experienced employees are highly qualified for their roles and are paid based on their contribution and value to the business.

Recently, there was an issue with a residential outage in my community and the customer support supervisor (who you have listed in your article) was contacted for assistance. The issue was handled promptly and courteously. In every organization, problems will arise and it is the responsibility of the people the company has in place to address those problems. With this situation, the Board employee was very professional and deserves the salary paid if this is the normal type of performance rendered for this job.

For the hourly employees, I believe the figures your article presented included the overtime worked. These are the guys (and gals) who come out at any hour and during most any weather condition to make sure your power or water is delivered to your home or business with as little interruption as possible. With that, I ask you one question, when one of your readers is up at 2 o'clock in the morning, reading The Gaffney Ledger in order to get drowsy enough to go back to sleep, would you rather them contact you because their power is out and they can't see the paper or they have the black ink residue left on their fingers from your publication with no water to wash their hands?

All of the people listed in your articles are well qualified and compensated for their roles. Maybe the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act could supply you with some comparison data for like positions in the same industries so that your readers could see where our community ranks along side others. Thanks, Terry "Bubba" Belue Jr. Gaffney, S.C.