The Press has correctly stated that most locales’ government jobs pay drastically better than the private sector. The two exceptions I have seen are Kootenai County jobs and Montana. Coeur d’Alene city and Washington government employees appear overpaid.

Several years ago, former Montana Gov. Schweitzer claimed 85 percent of Montana government jobs were paid less than $40,000/ year. Kootenai County pays starting building inspectors under $14/hour. But that’s life in Montana and Idaho. Most everyone makes less. It’s actually the carpetbagging Californian government retirees that are problematic here in Idaho.

In Riverside County in non-coastal California, the ONLY good paying jobs are government jobs that often pay two or three times the median income. The largest employer in the county is the county, with 23,000 employees! If one doesn’t work for the government or a water district, a school district, or a hospital, they probably still share housing with relatives. Many California public employees retire here to Idaho with their fat CALPERS government pension. And they are pushing Idaho’s cost of living too high only to retire on a disability to avoid taxes to any government that overpaid them.

I believe Idaho and Montana are right to have public pay, pathetic as it may be, match private sector pay. Otherwise the publicly paid push the cost of living out of reach of private sector workers. Whether we continue to endure shared poverty through handouts to employees of pathetically paying employers or reach the pinnacle once again of shared prosperity, government employee pay most of all should reflect the median income of North Idaho. Not be an escape from it.

MIKE RENO

Post Falls