OP-ED: End costly auto-pilot raises in government

But the raise does not stem from any review of performance, pay scales, living expenses, inflation or any other factor. Instead, Highway Patrol officers will collect more money just because police elsewhere in California recently got raises. The CHP’s state contract ties officers’ salary levels to what police take home in Los Angeles County and the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego. Pay at those agencies has climbed, so Highway Patrol officers will receive more, too.

Basing state pay on unrelated local government decisions sets a bizarre benchmark. Why should the state, with vastly different resources, responsibilities and priorities than local government, link its employees’ pay to whatever cities and counties agree to offer? Such an approach takes responsibility for state spending decisions out of legislators’ hands, and gives it to local governments — who are focused on their own considerations and not the state’s labor contracts. Abdicating control of spending to outside bodies hardly constitutes careful fiscal management.

The Highway Patrol contract is hardly the only public labor agreement that ties pay to what other agencies offer, of course. City and county labor pacts often link salaries to those in neighboring jurisdictions, a mechanism that continually ratchets up pay regardless of available finances. San Bernardino offers an especially egregious example: That city wrote its comparative salary formula into the city charter, which led to the city handing out nearly $1 million in raises to police and firefighters in March, even as the city sought bankruptcy protection.

Such automatic contract provisions are reckless policy, and state and local governments should reject labor agreements that include them. Voters elect officials to oversee public finances, not to cede control of fiscal decisions to outside groups and arbitrary formulas.