Bacon's Rebellion

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Oh, To Work for the Legislature

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Dick Hall-Sizemore
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Col. Steven Pike, Chief, Virginia Capitol Police. Photo Credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

I learned a long time ago that one can come across some juicy nuggets by perusing the amendments to the budget bill. One such nugget I ran across today confirmed something else I have known for a long time: It is nice to work for the General Assembly; legislators take care of their own.

This was confirmed by a budget amendment that gives the chief of the Capitol Police a 22% salary increase for FY 2022. Next fiscal year, the chief will be making $200,000 per year. Last year, for the sake of comparison, the chief of police in Richmond’s salary was reported to be $185,000.

That got me to thinking about comparing the salaries of the heads of legislative agencies with their counterparts in the executive branch:

Draw your own conclusions.

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Comments

11 responses to “Oh, To Work for the Legislature”

  1. Publius Avatar
    Publius

    Would the world end if you and I had the same conclusion?

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      Probably

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        Then don’t do that.

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    seems about right… here is Henrico Schools:

    Highest Paid Employees
    # Name Pay
    1 Patrick KinlawSuperintendent of Schools $217,486
    2 Beth TeigenAssistant Superintendent for Instruction $155,659
    3 Regina SchwabPrincipal (Elementary) $142,616
    4 Albert CiarochiAsst Superintendent for Operations $139,312

    and here is Stafford County:

    Incoming Stafford Superintendent Scott Kizner, 60, will collect an annual base salary of $226,000 when he starts Sept. 1, making him the highest-paid schools chief in the county’s history.

    Of course, he has 3600 employees.

  3. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Probably

  4. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Still, I’d rather be employed at the NCAA. Or, UVa’s head coach.

    I don’t know, are these salaries that far off from those in the real world for CEOs and such? But then, those are outrageously out of line with rank and file.

    Well, at least you get what you pay for. Embrace the suck.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      You miss my point. The legislative agency heads have limited jurisdiction and responsibility and, yet, their salaries are comparable to executive agency heads who have much more responsibility. For example, the salary of the chief of the Capitol Police, whose jurisdiction and scope of responsibility is limited and supervises an agency with 121 employees, is virtually the same as that of the Superintendent of State Police, whose agency has almost 2,700 employees and whose jurisdiction is the whole state. Another point of comparison is the director of the Dept. of Corrections, whose agency has over 12,00o employees, is responsible for the welfare and security of 25,000 inmates, and has a budget of $1.3 billion. Obviously, Pike’s salary is not related to his job responsibilities, but to whom he works for. And he got a 22 percent raise.

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        Akzo.

        His 22% raise is surely a result of 6 January, no doubt.
        He went to the Democrats and said, “Look, your only defense against Chase and her gun is me.”
        “Is 22% enough?”
        “I respect you too much to haggle.”

        Does $200K put him on par with the city and county PDs of similar employee size? The small area he covers is also open to large crowds, more so than say a county or city.

        But now your point is clearer. The comparable executive jobs between Legislative and Executive branches does appear cushy, but then they have to deal with legislators, a lessor class of person than, oh say, drug dealers.

  5. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    Haven’t looked recently. Don’t really care. But I bet the Deputy Attorney General salaries are now higher than the statutory amount for the AG, which would take something rare called Political Courage to raise. In the private firms across Main Street they might be starting associates at those levels now….We were paying the AG deputies $116K when I left 20 years ago.

  6. Mary Taylor Avatar
    Mary Taylor

    Post a job description.

  7. kls Avatar
    kls

    UVA’s Chief Officer for Diversity and Equity = $340,000

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