Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 14, 1995                   TAG: 9504200040
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ROANOKE COUNTY'S GROWING PAY PAINS

It's hardly an incredible aberration that individuals within the same organization make different salaries after the same years of service, or that someone hired later actually makes more. Sometimes the difference can be attributed to performance; sometimes, to a higher starting pay based on previous experience or education; sometimes, in part, to office politics. Sometimes it is simply an unintended consequence of efforts to bring pay scales up to competitive levels.

Add to these common variables some unusual circumstances in reinventing a professional police department out of a politicized sheriff's department, and the idea of re-evaluating every pay decision for every person at every step along his or her career path begins to look as practical as jumping into a tar pit. It can be done, but not without getting stuck.

Does this mean the county shouldn't worry about paying police officers fairly for stressful and sometimes dangerous work? Absolutely not.

If little else is clear about the labyrinthine pay structure, it is apparent that some officers are not making enough money for the work they do - not enough, in some cases, to support their families. An officer who comes to the department with seven years of experience in Northern Virginia, and must quit after four years here because his family of five still qualifies for food stamps, is not getting paid enough.

The county can't mollify every employee who is dissatisfied with his or her pay as it stacks up against the pay of everyone else. Nor should the administration allow salaries to be set by politics. (Funny how this issue arises around budget time.)

County officials must, however, adjust compensation for increasingly challenging work. And they must act in accordance with what they are: the government of an urbanizing county with mounting demands for professional services.

County Administrator Elmer Hodge says he has been concentrating limited tax dollars on trying to push overall pay scales up into competitive ranges, and now thinks they are about where they need to be. That, and the fact that the county is close to paying off some big-ticket bills like the Dixie Caverns landfill cleanup, should mean more money for raises.

It will take a lot of money, though, to move people's pay up without creating more inequities. And it won't end there. Soon, for example, there will be calls to expand emergency medical services.

The county's Board of Supervisors and its taxpayers have cause to celebrate past spending restraint. But they need to prepare for rising costs, as Roanoke County continues its transition from a rural community requiring scant services into an urban area in need of more public safety workers, teachers, parks workers, etc.

These are the people caricatured so often as slackards feeding at the public trough. But they provide services that citified folks demand. Just like their fellow working stiffs in the private sector, they deserve just compensation.