Pay Officers For Job Well Done
To the Editor:
I stand with Sheriff Korenek. Pay our deputies for performance (and our Sheriff also). That our deputies might become the highest paid employees of our county does bother me. Judging from the feedback to our County Commissioners, as reported in the Record on May 19, most folks in our county find it repugnant to pay Deputy Sheriffs for world-class performance, and Pct. 3 Commissioner Tom Muras was quoted as negative on stopping drugs.
Big time dealers and druggies profit from the trade, and it is nonsensical to insist that law enforcement not profit from stopping it.
Either go with higher salaries or modest wages enhanced by bonuses. Before hyperventilating at the thought of paying law enforcement for performance, remember that is how the rest of the nation works. Market-driven economic concepts provide superior performance elsewhere, and they can also work with the Sheriff’s Department. Our judicial system provides plenty of severe penalties to punish officials who do not work with integrity.
In 2018, 67,367 Americans died from drug overdoses, according to the CDC. And massively more young people die compared to the COViD-19. It is roughly the same every year. We can say that people make their choices and get their just deserts, until it involves the lives of our loved ones.
I find it discouraging that citizens have been indoctrinated to believe that running at least part of a Sheriff’s department like a business is bad. I find not a thing wrong with our Sheriff turning a big profit, if he can, and then reimbursing his employees for excellent performance.
There is nothing noble about stopping only 10% of speeders who cruise through a school zone at 60 mph compared with stopping and ticketing 100% of them and earning a tidy profit. The same applies to drugs.
The negative economic impact of illegal drugs is about $200 Billion per year, in addition to death, other issues such as effects on children in the womb, and the traumas of divorce, homelessness, etc. We have as “epidemic” with the “druggie disease” transmitted from one generation to the next with increasing intensity. These issues stop if the supply stops.
Obviously, policing alone does not cure the “druggie disease.” The transmission from one druggie generation to the next has to be terminated, and that can happen only with substantial improvements in the personal behaviors of parents who provide strong oversight and ethical and moral education for their children. And it takes a community working together from all directions, Hillary Clinton correctly observed “It takes a village.”
In “Babe Ruth: The Big Moments of the Big Fellow”, Tom Meany writes that the Babe was criticized for holding out for $80,000 a year when President Hoover earned only $75,000. “What the hell has Hoover got to do with this?” demanded the Babe. “I had a better year than he did.” This quotation is an educational input for our Commissioner’s Court.
Edward R. Dykes
La Grange