Letter: Commissioners, return your pay raises

Dear Hays County Commissioners (Judge Liz Sumter, Commissioners Karen Ford, Will Conley, Jeff Barton and Debbie Ingalsbe):

As an 11-year resident of Hays County I want to go on public record that I am requesting you return the raises you all voted for and provided yourselves. Now is NOT the time to take a pay raise, especially one that is a 14-percent pay increase.

In this economy people are not getting such raises. Heck, a lot of folks [7.2 percent] currently are unemployed and soon many more will lose their jobs. Our taxes are escalating and so are cost-of-living expenses.

It’s just not the right thing to do and [all] our commissioners seem to have their own interests at heart, and not just with this salary issue — with quite a few other issues.

Another problem I have with this salary issue is the $10,000 commissioners determined to spend on the salary “study."

Do we have so much money that we can throw it away? If so, I’ll gladly take a few thousand dollars if commissioners want to toss more away, as I’m certain most county residents would as well. And why do the study if you already made up your mind to give yourselves the raise?

Giving yourselves a big raise in these hard economic times is NOT right and commissioners should realize this and return their raise increases and wait for better economic times, like the rest of us have to.

Respectfully yours,

Peter Stern
Driftwood, Tx