Bell is a small town in Los Angeles county. If you haven't heard, there LA Times recently broke a story on the salaries that city officials have been receiving. As an example the Bell City Manager was receiving a salary of $784,637 annually. This news has sparked outrage and may lead to criminal charges. But let's put into perspective what this really means. These salaries are paid by the taxpayers. Aside from just the money, what did the diversion of those funds cost the city? Let's just say the City Manager paid himself a reasonable salary in the range of $100,000. That would have left $648,000 for the city that could have been used for other purposes.
For example, most people are aware that there is a lack of funding for more teachers. At an average salary of $30,000 for a new teacher, that money could been used to hire 21 new school teachers. What about things for our children? A new school desk can be found online for about $68.00. That works out to about 9,529 brand new school desks for the children. New textbooks? A geometry book on Amazon lists for $84.72. At that price, we could have supplied high school students with over 7,600 new geometry books.
No comments:
Post a Comment