Scott Bremner

The flap over Erie Airport Director Kelly Frederick’s $164,000 salary got me thinking.

Authorities (like the airport board) are autonomous by design.

The concept is that the asset, like the airport or the water system is so important that it must be removed from the normal political grind.

While that has its advantages it also removes one of the key safeguards that politics provide, that all actions are eventually answerable to the public every four years or so.

So we took a look at what the executive directors of the other ten or so authorities make.

While the airport director was far and away the highest paying job, the next four seats, for the Water Authority, Convention Center Authority, Port Authority and Housing Authority all topped $100,000.

Others, like the Zoo, EMTA and the Redevelopment Authority paid less.

The least paid authority director is Ray Massing, who runs the Parking Authority for the relatively paltry sum of $69,000.

But perhaps most interestingly is the fact that every authority director, every single one of them, makes more than the Mayor’s salary of $65,000.

In Erie, keeping the parking meters running is worth more than keeping the city running.

The resignation of Fredericks ends the airport’s run as paying the most for its executive, since the interim director is only pulling down somewhere in the ballpark of $86,000.

That’s still $21,000 more (roughly the cost of a first year TV reporter) than Erie’s mayor makes.

So is the Mayor underpaid or are the directors making too much?

It’s hard to say but my gut is telling me that it’s probably a little of both.

Public service should never be a money grab, but I also believe that all of us, including public servants, should be given the hope of upward mobility, at least to fend off the cost of living.

Here’s one idea, something that I’ve floated by a couple of people to mixed reviews.

The mayor is limited by law to three terms, or 12 years in office.

What about a 12 step pay scale that would allow a mayor to make a little bit more each year based on the idea that a veteran mayor is more valuable to the public than a rookie?

But each new mayor would have to start back at the beginning of the scale, balancing the individual’s need for progress with the public’s need to hold the line.

The authorities are more problematic.

The law gives them the freedom to act within the confines of their own budgets, even though all of us, one way or another, provide the funding to fuel most of them.

We don’t select the people to sit on those boards, but we do elect the people who select the board members.

About the best we can do is remind them of that.