The Truth About State Employees

It seems like an all too commonly held belief in some circles (i.e. Republicans and small-government kooks) that state employees are lazy and overpaid, and throughout the Joint Finance Committees’s budget negotiations, some Republicans have floated ideas on how to really stick it to state employees, such as only paying state employees once a month, cutting health care benefits, not giving raises, etc. State employees have become a bogeyman of sorts for some conservatives, and that’s why I was so amused to see someone finally stick up for state employees.

The following was sent to the LaCrosse Tribune in response to an article on a recent Citizens For Responsible Government meeting and the meanderings of Scott Walker and Todd Berry about public employee benefits.

State benefits coverage not even half the story

By Marty Beil

When a newspaper covers a gathering of anti-tax grumblers convening to hear a man who makes his living fanning anti-tax flames, it’s no surprise the story comes out as one-sided as the Tribune’s coverage of Sunday’s meeting of the so-called Citizens for Responsible Government.

But the result is far from the full story and it is anything but responsible.

The president of the corporate-funded Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance is correct when he says that public employee salaries are not to blame for taxes being what they are. But when Todd Berry singles out public employee benefits for blame, he’s being less than forthright.

It’s not accurate to look at salaries in isolation. Nor is it useful to focus only on benefits. Like all working people, public employees are compensated by a mixture of salary and benefits.

For decades, most public employees have given up the potential for higher wages in exchange for maintaining health care that protects their families and retirement benefits that allow them to retire with the dignity they deserve.

Good people have been attracted to public service and have been willing to accept lower pay than they could have made in the private sector in exchange for a degree of stability.

A stable workforce pays dividends for the public. When it comes to teaching our kids, protecting public safety and safeguarding our drinking water and great outdoors – experience matters.

Experience means higher quality services. Experienced workers get the job done right the first time, and that holds down costs. Experienced workers are committed to their communities and accountable to their neighbors. They live here, shop here, pay taxes here – just like everybody else.

Wisconsin’s commitment to fostering a stable public workforce has been a good deal for taxpayers over the years because it has held down the cost of providing excellent services.

It was only when the cost of health insurance began to skyrocket – through no fault of the people who need insurance – that the equation started to get out of whack.

As one who has negotiated many contracts, I can tell you that the cost of supporting the health insurance bureaucracy is rapidly outpacing all other factors at the bargaining table. Public employees have been taking smaller and smaller cost-of-living increases (typically less than inflation) to offset the raging costs of health insurance.

It seems like anybody truly interested in saving money for taxpayers would be spending a lot of time and energy on pushing for a solution to the health care crisis.

Instead of blaming working people for simply trying to maintain decent coverage for their families, truly responsible citizens groups would be asking why Americans spend more money for health care than anybody else in the world.

Why do Americans pay far more but get statistically poorer outcomes than other industrial nations? Why do we pay more while leaving more than 47 million Americans with no coverage? Why are we willing to watch 30 cents of every health care dollar get gobbled up by a duplicative and inefficient health insurance bureaucracy?

Truly responsible citizen groups would clamor to know. Of course, it’s easier to sound a full retreat rather than confront the behemoths of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that are profiting mightily. It’s easier to point fingers and blame the people who plow snow off our streets or provide care for those who can’t care for themselves.

Berry suggests Wisconsin should let other states set the standard for how we treat our public service employees. Never mind that this would surrender our traditional commitment to quality. Never mind it would have us following less enlightened states that offer less commitment to public service employees.

Wisconsin has a proud tradition of valuing the contributions of the people who work to keep our communities strong and our schools first rate. The results are clear to anyone who has traveled to states that don’t share our commitment.

Lowering our standards and abandoning our commitment to quality public services is not the Wisconsin way. Instead of following, it’s time for Wisconsin to once again lead the way. A more useful and productive place to start would be by searching hard for a solution to the health care crisis.

The answer to skyrocketing health insurance costs isn’t to take coverage away from those who still have it. The answer is to commit ourselves to finding ways to make health care more affordable and accessible for every American citizen.

Marty Beil is executive director of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24. The union represents more than 20,000 front-line state employees.

Now obviously Marty Beil’s biased on behalf of state employees, but the notion that state employees are by and large lazy and overpaid is absolutely false. Sure, there are some folks working for the state that could be categorized as lazy and overpaid, but those folks are in the minority. The state employees I know are dedicated, hard working folks who really want to make a difference in our state’s communities, and they really do earn their paychecks and benefits. Sure, I suppose I’m biased, but I shudder to think where our great state would be without all those hardworking folks who keep our highways and communities safe, who keep our air and water clean, and who teach our kids.

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