EDITORIAL
Executive pay raises for state long overdue

To a lot of folks in Hawai'i, an $85,000-a-year job would feel sweet, indeed.

It is good money, even in these high-priced Islands.

But is it an adequate salary for a state department director who has responsibility for hundreds of employees and millions of dollars in budget? Not likely.

For that reason, a special salary commission appointed by the Legislature and the Judiciary has recommended substantial, but reasonable, pay increases for top state administrative officials, judges and others.

It would be the first such pay increase in more than a decade.

How many in the private sector would accept going more than 10 years without any increase in pay?

For some unfathomable reason, however, Democrats in the House and Senate appear ready to reject the pay raises across the board. They say it is out of consideration for the taxpayers, who are already being asked to support an over-stretched and under-funded budget.

That simply doesn't wash. The overall cost of the pay raises — even when extended out over time — amounts to a negligible amount of the overall state budget.

But the more basic point is quality. Gov. Linda Lingle, for instance, has been able to recruit an able and experienced Cabinet. But for many of those who agreed to serve, the assignment comes at a personal cost.

Boosting the pay of department directors from $85,000 to something between $103,000 and $120,000 (depending on responsibilities) over the next eight years would hardly produce a gold-rush stampede. But it might help the administration recruit and retain the quality administrators taxpayers deserve.

These are gradual, modest and long-overdue pay raises. If Democrats in the House and Senate insist on blocking them, they will have appeared to put petty partisanship over plain good sense.