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| 2/5/2010 10:49:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Missouri retirement
system bonuses end
EDITORIAL
In April and again in August last year, The Daily Star-Journal advanced the position that Missouri State Employees Retirement System employees should never be paid bonuses, and now the newspaper is glad to support the 8-1 vote taken by the retirement system board Jan. 21 to end the bonus system.
No state employees ever should receive bonuses for doing the job they are paid to do. They should not be allowed to receive taxpayer-funded bonuses for two main reasons:
First, there is a high probability - based on the corruption level seen among convicted Missouri officeholders and state employees in recent months - that at some point bonuses would be awarded based on favoritism rather than on work performance; and
Second, if a state employee deserves more money then that employee has viable options, with one being to take a state test to show readiness to advance to a higher pay grade, and another option is to seek work in a different state office or in the private sector.
The Missouri State Employees Retirement System planned to give $162,258 in bonuses to 57 staffers in July. Fourteen other employees already had received $300,000 in bonuses by that time. No doubt some if not all of the employees who expected bonuses worked hard, but for that work they should be paid a fair wage and nothing more. Any employee who cannot deal with the grim fiscal realities of working for a state government mired in a deflated economy should exercise other options.
Gov. Jay Nixon, hearing about the bonus plan in July, expressed outrage over the idea of bonuses in this economy and put them on hold. At that time, The Star-Journal wrote: "The 'hold' should be permanent."
Now it is.
The decision is not one that should make anyone applaud, given that hard work deserves a reward and that some state employees will not get that reward.
Instead of applause, we give a simple nod to Nixon, to the eight-member majority on the Missouri State Employees Retirement System board, and to system employees who continue to work for the system, not because doing so is the easy thing to do, but because doing so serves hard-pressed Missouri taxpayers.
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