How much do these folks pay towards their medical insurance? Surely, it's not totally free without any contribution at all? Does anyone know?

Overpaid based on what? Perhaps you can use some evidence to support your claims. Or are you one of the 'reduce all levels of government by 20%' people? Since you can't have 'parties' and get your children the 'things they need', it's obvious you made some poor financial decisions in your life. If you are unable to afford the taxes assessed for your property, perhaps you made a poor decision to purchase such a large house. And now you use government as a scapegoat and throw your children into like they are some victim. Hopefully your children are young enough that they don't understand all of your poor financial decisions you have made.

And with my interations in other communities they think the total opposite of our Public Works Director. Most think he is a joke.

Actually Jen, the people listed here are employees and have NO vote on their own salaries. The people that vote on salaries are the elected officials, who are unpaid.

Also, please quote me correctly, your omission of the word "not" totally distorts what I said. Maybe some more time spent with the teacher mafia would have taught you some grammar.

Oh the government votes on their raises line. Have to love this pathetic excuse. Who elected these people into office? You have to remember a simple concept Jen that you can't seem to comprehend. Government works for you, you don't work for the governement.

All you see are the salaries. You need to see the true cost factor with public funded pension plans and paid time off along with health care plans that no private company offers

Mike- do you have data that supports your statement above? in regards to job security and benefits?

Directors do not get 'laid off' in the private sector at the rate you are claiming. The low level employees do, just like in the public sector.

Why this community is still listening to this 'reduce everything 20%' crowd is baffling. Why should anyone be paying any attention to a crowd that can't even be bothered to check if its statements are true before posting them?

The core of their argument is nothing more than:
"They make more money than I do, so they are obviously overpaid", and
"I pay more than $0 in taxes, so I am obviously overtaxed as a result of waste"

You mean the 74% of the electorate crowd? They are all wrong and you have the answers is that what you're saying? The problem probably isn't as much the amount we are paying in key salaries as it is with the number of people on the public dole. There are way too many public employee serving way too few citizens. We advocate a user pays model where possible, particularly for non-essential government services like park and library programs but also for many school programs. You use it, you pay for it. The give me something for nothing crowd (the 26% who didn't for tax reduction) certainly gets all excited when the prospect of paying their own way. What kind of moron thinks the tax structure in Oswego is perfectly fine when it is among the highest rates in the entire country and puts people on fixed incomes in jeopardy of losing their homes?

Your article from 1994 is very convincing.
/s

This is the type of link someone posts, when they are scrambling to find a single scrap of text to support what they are saying... AFTER they say it.

What that link actually shows, is that in the year 1989 and 1992, public employees had better job security. Unfortunately, you do not yet know how silly you sound when trying to use 2 single data points from the distant past as if they are a good representation of what you just claimed today.

I'm guessing that you actually found the numbers from recently, put failed to post them because they disagree with your claims. Instead, you had to pull years from over 20 years ago to find a time period when your claims were still true.
http://www.governing.com/topics/public-workforce/col-quantifying-public-sector-job-security.html
"employment in the public sector is falling faster than it is in the private sector. The loss of public-sector jobs was backed up by data released recently by the Bureau of Labor Statistics which showed a loss of 280,000 public-sector jobs from December 2010 to December 2011, with most of these losses being experienced at the state and local level."

This of course, ignores the fact that you are comparing unionized labor in the public sector, with non-union labor in the private sector.

Perhaps you would like to learn how that comparison works when you compare union labor in the private sector, with union labor in the public sector. Your homework is to learn how to figure this out... show your work.

Of course he won't show his work. Just a bunch of outdated websites with poor comparisons. Mike's ignorance really shows.

OK WikiTim, you and the 26% crowd can troll around and try and find some statistic to prove your baseless arguments. The 74% is the stat that matters, not what some hermit living in his mommies basement, smoking bongs and eating Cheetos, thinks.

The private sector does use this mentality ... all the time. That's a big factor in how they decide on and adjust salaries. Human Resources employees are constantly researching the salaries paid by other companies for various positions so they can set their base to attract the best talent.

Exactly, Kelly. I've reviewed many salary surveys in order to make compensation decisions for both hourly (professional and non-professional staff) as well as managers/directors. The idea that the private sector says, "Here - take or leave it." is not necessarily accurate. Especially when you look at industries where there is a significant demand.

Not only have I worked for large corporations that routinely (at least annually) did compensation studies, but they even (gasp!) adjusted current employees accordingly. I do have to disagree with the comment that directors are not laid off. They most certainly are. I've definitely seen it happen with senior management. Not necessarily as common as it is with the lower level employees, but it does happen.

Nice job Mike, hope all others on this post take the time and read your research. Keep in mind also that many public workers are simply hired due to patronage or nepotism and not skills.

Good to know that you can't follow basic instructions.

You get 0 points.

We will give you one more chance to post your links showing the comparison to private sector unions, with public sector unions. All you have posted, is links comparing public sector unions to private sector non-union, which was already shown to be inaccurate. Let's just ignore that one of your links directly contradicts what you are claiming. Do you even understand what you are reading, or did you not bother to read it at all?

It looks like Mike and Oswegosmarts are just those people who read something and think what they read is actually true when it is the complete opposite.