Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ annual salary of $105,889 is $19,000 less than the national average for governors, notes a Topeka Capital-Journal blog. Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, observed that a "number of the people that work for her are making more than she is." Still, the top job pays even less in neighboring Nebraska, Colorado and Arkansas ($105,000, $90,000 and $80,848, respectively). Sebelius’ spokeswoman cited two of the perks that help offset the pay — great seats at college games and a backstage invitation to meet the Rolling Stones in Wichita last fall. Still, as Morris said, "at some point, you have to look at compensation."
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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42 Comments
For a governor who’s actions reflects the will of the people, on issues such as guns, abortion, etc, we should pay twice the price. For this one, our money is wasted. Not worth a nickel!
Shouldn’t we look at all elected officials to give this question context?
Aren’t Kansas legislators more underpaid compared to other state legislators than Gov. Sebelius is compared to other governors? What about other state workers? What about state versus federal workers?
While Gov. Sebelius probably should be paid more money, there are many government jobs in Kansas that should be capped to be no higher than the governor. For example, no superintendent of schools, or university president/chancellor should be paid more than the governor. The education civil servants in Kansas should also NOT be paid more than the U.S. Secretary of Education (a federal executive service position).
This article is a bit dated, but demonstrates that some school district superintendents don’t understand they are civil servants, they have a government job, and are paid too much: http://www.kansasmeadowlark.com/2005/08-07/index.htm
Many teachers likely feel the huge salaries given to superintendents are unfair.
But isn’t Kansas government spending out of control? Perhaps we need additional taxes for these government expenditures? Since the Eagle seems to like taxes so much, perhaps a special tax on newspapers could help pay for Gov. Sebelius’ raise and raises for all the other state employees? Would the Eagle agree to that?
Perhaps Kansas spending is out of control because the only people who can afford to run for office are those people who are rich enough that they can either spend money as they please or run businesses where they are used to spending other people’s money with abandon.
Maybe we should pay our governor and legislators more money. After all, you get what you pay for! And in government, if the people don’t pay their legislators the special interest groups will!
A Democrat Gov. in Kansas, Priceless.
Brownback gave himself a raise in the Senate. Sebelius makes less than Brownback but shows up for work more often.
She is a $20 whore, not worth a penny more.
Sebelius’s salary is reasonable. Click the link above to the Topeka article. The highest-salaried governors work in large-population and/or high-cost-of-living states. Here are salaries for inland states with less than 3,000,000 population,
Iowa $130,000New Mexico $110,000Kansas $105,889Idaho $105,560South Dakota $105,544Nebraska $105,000Wyoming $105,000Utah $104,100Montana $96,462West Virginia $95,000North Dakota $92,483Arkansas $80,848
This shows Iowa to be a singular high outlier in governors’ salaries, and Kansas to be a modestly above-average salary state.
We might also bear in mind that states like New Mexico, Idaho and Utah are undergoing economic transformation to high-tech, they are welcoming new-idea outsiders and they are growing fast. Maybe their governors, who are chief executives of rapid change and economic expansion, are underpaid.
Except for Johnson County, which runs itself without the governor’s help, Kansas is treading water. Actually, its high-water days were the 1950’s, and nobody has figured out how to redesign Kansas’s economy to get it into the 21st century.
Sebelius is basically a caretaker-superintendent type, not a take-charge change-leading executive. Her job doesn’t merit an above-average salary among the class of states to which Kansas belongs.
It is really not enough money in the era of CEOs making $10 million a year or more. It should pay at least $170,000 a year.
In the military and in business, yes, climbing the professional ladder usually means higher pay than for those down the corporate ladder.
But government is not comparable. Salaries of elected officials do not generally exceed salaries of professional experienced employees. For example, Wichita’s mayor’s salary is considerably less than the city manager’s salary and most likely lower than many other experienced employees such as civil engineers, architects, lawyers, law enforcement, and emergency services personnel.
Some people think that elected officials should serve without pay and this is the case with our school board members. But I don’t agree with this. I’ve seen relatively low-paid state legislators get into financial problems while trying to serve the public.
Now, in the case of our Kansas governor, this person does not have to possess any special education or job experience — just the ability to get elected at state-wide elections every four years.
So, in my opinion, the salary level for Arkansas’ governor seems about right for Kansas.
MPS…………..heartlander……….Doc Schooley:
You know, time and time again you write of your utter disdain for all things in and of Kansas. If you dislike this state so much, why don’t you move somewhere that is more to your liking?
Good, well-thought post, MPS.
Apparently Apophis is a “kill the messenger” type. How many times are we told to “just change the channel”?
RustyFord, how is that a business can be “spending other people’s money with abandon.”
That’s how I think of government, not business.
Now a business may spend its own money with abandon or even foolishly, but it is its own money, isn’t it?
Governors also get a lot of unseen benefits as mentioned in the article. Most professional politicians do not “apply for the job” for the salary anyway. It is more about influence, power and climbing the stairs so their idea of self acclaimation.
There are a few, however, that actually care about the people they serve and would work for a bare minimum.
Most governors are already Millionaires to begin with and they usually donate their salary to charity.
I don’t mind a salary raise for the governor and even the Legislators.
The president of any of the State Colleges makes way more than the Governor.
It should be kicked up 20 percent at least.
The cost to 2 million people in the state of Kansas would be minimal.
Joe–
Our Gov. is a Democrat. Don’t confuse her with an Alf Landon (millionaire oil man from Kansas) or Bob Dole.
She has to work for a living like the rest of us.
Isnt the real question HOW MUCH IS YOUR WATER WORTH?
Or, HOW MUCH IS YOUR CLEAN AIR WORTH?
Get her out of there before she and her cronies destroy what is left of the water. Get her out of there before Holcomb is given the green light to suck water and spew pollution while sending the electricity to Colorado.
Hell, just get her out of there. Run kathleen, run!
As far away from Kansas as possible.
Proof positive, just like the CEO salary obscenities, that job performance is unrelated to pay. I dont mind paying our governor a respectable salary.
I do mind a governor who uses water as political capital, and who could give the bush family a run for their money on cronyism.
Capn! You do make a point. The highest paid “public” employees of the state of Kansas are College Sport Coaches. Who make a million a year.
Perhaps we should base the pay on how large the budget is and compare her salary to those ceos that oversee the same budget?I think overall, public employees get paid less than they should. The thing is, nobody is wiling to pay more to fill a position than they have to. As long as there are people willing to do the job for the money being paid, they have little reason to raise it. Besides, then taxes would go up, and there would be hell to pay for that.
And governor leadership has declared that in Kansas, the “drought” is over?
Source: The Guardian
By Andrew Gumbel in Los AngelesPublished: 11 June 2007
America is facing its worst summer drought since the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. Or perhaps worse still.
From the mountains and desert of the West, now into an eighth consecutive dry year, to the wheat farms of Alabama, where crops are failing because of rainfall levels 12 inches lower than usual, to the vast soupy expanse of Lake Okeechobee in southern Florida, which has become so dry it actually caught fire a couple of weeks ago, a continent is crying out for water.
In the south-east, usually a lush, humid region, it is the driest few months since records began in 1895. California and Nevada, where burgeoning population centres co-exist with an often harsh, barren landscape, have seen less rain over the past year than at any time since 1924.
The Sierra Nevada range, which straddles the two states, received only 27 per cent of its usual snowfall in winter, with immediate knock-on effects on water supplies for the populations of Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The human impact, for the moment, has been limited, certainly nothing compared to the great westward migration of Okies in the 1930 – the desperate march described by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath.
Read more: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article264...
——————————————————————————–
We’re seeing the results of the climate model predictions playing out. Huge storms, blistering droughts, fresh water scarcity, melting ice sheets, disappearing islands. What a train wreck.
Go back to the top: Kansas Meadowlark makes a lot of sense!
“But isn’t Kansas government spending out of control? Perhaps we need additional taxes for these government expenditures?”
Hmmmm….. The last I checked, republicans had a majority of both houses in Kansas.
If the REPUBLICANS wanted to control spending in this state, they could. They have majorities.
Perhaps they are just spending like drunk sailors after watching the republican majorities in BOTH houses of Congress?
Republicans are now the party of big spending. No matter how hard they whine, they have been in control and done nothing but piss away tax dollars.
But of course, it is all the democrats’ fault…
Nothing is wrong, but if there is, it is Bill Clinton’s fault.
ksfarmgrrl,
The drainage of rain water from my property this Spring could have irrigated the entirety of western Kansas. :D
If the governor wants more money she should get in touch with the people from out-of-state who sent her millions in campaign funds. If they wanted her as governor, then they should pay her salary.
Apophis, I’m here because a hospital recruited my spouse to provide life-saving specialized medical services that Kansas doesn’t have the resources to train its own doctors to deliver.
Perhaps you don’t know this, but Kansas has to import doctors in more than twenty high-tech specialties ranging from in vitro reproductive services to cardiothoracic surgery. Did you see the stroke-center billboard Via Christi posted on Kellogg last year? The doctor in the picture wasn’t a Kansan.
If, God forbid, one of your children was hit by a car and needed neurosurgery for head trauma, followed by intensive care unit recovery, his doctors would not be Kansas natives. If, God forbid, you got cancer and needed a bone-marrow transplant, your doctor wouldn’t have gotten his fellowship training here.
Sometimes Kansas natives leave the state for advanced-specialty fellowship training and come back home, but there aren’t enough of them to fill the needs, so outsiders have to be recruited. It’s like KU’s basketball team. Local boosters want a top-flight team, so they have to recruit coaches and blue-chip players from other states.
Kansas recruited my spouse for Kansas-natives’ benefit. And you get me on the blog. ;-)
So, PM, the people of kansas are the ones who actually pulled the levers.
Damn those tricky out of staters! Fooling kansas voters like that.
Are you saying the people of kansas are too stupid to elect their own governor, that they fell for the lure of big money advertising and voted against their own best interests?
say it isnt so….
I wonder where I could find some of that tricky out of state money to fool the folks out here?
PS, it’s worth noting that our governor hails from Ohio.
Republicans are now the party of big spending. No matter how hard they whine, they have been in control and done nothing but piss away tax dollars.
But of course, it is all the democrats’ fault…
Posted by: ksfarmgrrl | June 11, 2007 at 11:32 AM
Of course it’s the democrats fault. The stupid Republicans are trying to outDemocrat the Democrat party :)
Sadly, the Republican party has decided that buying votes was easier than earning them.
Heheheh lj. And it would have just been cheaper to BUY the iraqi oil fields than it has been to steal their oil….
Now there you go, ruining our Kumbaya moment. lol
If she doesn’t like the salary, she doesn’t HAVE to take the job.
Don’t forget the free housing and other little perks.
“If she doesn’t like the salary, she doesn’t HAVE to take the job.”
Kathleen did not complain about the salary – it was Steve Morris that brought it up.
He is the Republican President of the Senate.
Underpaying our elected officials, whether its the Governor or state senators or state representatives, does _not_ help Kansas get a better government. It gets us, for the most part, people who already have enough wealth to live on while they serve in office, or who can afford to take a nearly five month leave of absence from their day jobs every year.
One thing to keep in mind about our part-time legislature: Even when they’re not in session and not getting their $80-some dollar a day, they still have to provide constituent services. They get no support from the state for this. It means weekends and evenings at community meetings and events, it means endless phonecalls from angry constituents, it means hours spent helping neighbors resolve issues with state agencies. It’s _not_ an easy job, and they don’t get paid anywhere near enough for the job.
If she is underpaid, why not quit and get a better paying job.
Will all the blood-stained kickbacks that Bilious Sebelius is getting from abortion mills, she doesn’t need a salary.
Parkay,
Let’s see your proof of “kickbacks” that Sebelius is pocketing.
Oh, you say you have no evidence?
Guess that means you’re a liar.
What does God say about _that,_ Parkay?
“Thou shalt not bear false witness”
Steve Morris is such a lackey for the Governor. Can he get his head up her dress (oops she does not wear dresses) any further?
Give us a break Morris go home to your wife and let the Governor go home to her retired husband.
Morris is such a lackey, he voted to override Sebelius veto of the concealed carry clarification this year, and voted to override on the abortion reporting proviso.
I’m sure I could go back and come up with dozens, if not hundreds, of votes Morris has made in opposition to the Governor.
That’s the sign of a true lackey.
:::eyeroll:::
I wonder how much she got for selling out KU Hospital and the Med school to her pals in Missouri.
It is my understanding that the Governor does not even own a home in Kansas anymore.
That should be looked into.