I am trying to get the child known as The Aggie through college.
College is expensive. Textbooks, thanks to this idiot, are still incredibly expensive.
The Aggie wants to be a veterinarian. She has loved mammals, reptiles, bugs and amphibians ever since she learned to walk.
During the summers, she works as a lifeguard. Lifeguard training and certification, if I remember correctly, required that she undergo a grueling series of qualifications, then pass a ten day lifesaving course. The cost for all of this was $200.00
A degree from Texas A and M will cost you around $16,000.00 per year.
Until today, I saw lifeguarding as a means to an end, nothing more. Depending on whose statistics you believe, a good vet can bring home between 75K and 115K per year.
But wait....Here's the Orange County Register:
High pay and benefits for lifeguards in Newport Beach is the latest example of frustrating levels of compensation for public employees. More than half the city’s full-time lifeguards are paid a salary of over $100,000 and all but one of them collect more than $100,000 in total compensation including benefits.
When thinking about career options with high salaries, lifeguarding is probably not one of the first jobs to come to mind. But it apparently should. In one of Orange County’s most desirable beach destinations, Newport Beach, lifeguards are compensated all too well; especially compared with the county annual median household income of $71,735.
It might be time for a career change.
According to a city report on lifeguard pay for the calendar year 2010, of the 14 full-time lifeguards, 13 collected more than $120,000 in total compensation; one lifeguard collected $98,160.65. More than half the lifeguards collected more than $150,000 for 2010 with the two highest-paid collecting $211,451 and $203,481 in total compensation respectively. Even excluding benefits like health care and pension, more than half the lifeguards receive a total salary, including overtime pay, exceeding $100,000. And they also receive an annual allowance of $400 for “Sun Protection.” Many work four days a week, 10 hours a day.
I don't begrudge anyone whatever they earn, as long as they're not taking it from someone else by force. But these are government employees, and their compensation is taken from others by force.
If you live in Newport Beach, and put your foot down, and refuse to pay your share of this, and say "I'm not going to pay $200,000.00 per year to have Jack Johnson sit on a tower all day, watching damp supermodels frolic in the sand and the surf," the government will show up with guns at your house and take your assets or put you in a steel cage.
But all libertarian rants aside, how in the hell can you justify paying $200,000 per year to a freakin' lifeguard? Is it possible?
Well, yes. You just compare the compensation to that of other lifeguards in government jobs, and it all makes sense.
In a phone conversation, Brent Jacobsen, president of the Lifeguard Management Association, defended the lifeguard pay in Newport Beach: “We have negotiated very fair and very reasonable salaries in conjunction with comparable positions and other cities up and down the coast.” “Lifeguard salaries here are well within the norm of other city employees.” And therein is the problem: Local public worker pay has become all too generous and out of line with private sector equivalents.
On face, the compensation packages for these guards are staggering. But take into consideration the retirement benefits being paid to currently retired lifeguards and lifeguards who will retire at these pay levels in the future and the problem is further compounded. Lifeguards are able to retire with 90 percent of their salary, after only 30 years of work at as early as the age of 50.
Here's a video put out by a California Watchdog group (yes, that's an oxymoron) called Americans For Prosperity - California.
Note to The Aggie: Pack your bags. Pack up Fat Kitty. Pack up the idiot Labrador. We're going to California !!! (The City Of Los Angeles is hiring Duplicating Machine Operators, and I think I could work my way up to Senior Duplicating Machine Operator before retirement time. Hit the link.)
College is expensive. Textbooks, thanks to this idiot, are still incredibly expensive.
The Aggie wants to be a veterinarian. She has loved mammals, reptiles, bugs and amphibians ever since she learned to walk.
During the summers, she works as a lifeguard. Lifeguard training and certification, if I remember correctly, required that she undergo a grueling series of qualifications, then pass a ten day lifesaving course. The cost for all of this was $200.00
A degree from Texas A and M will cost you around $16,000.00 per year.
Until today, I saw lifeguarding as a means to an end, nothing more. Depending on whose statistics you believe, a good vet can bring home between 75K and 115K per year.
But wait....Here's the Orange County Register:
High pay and benefits for lifeguards in Newport Beach is the latest example of frustrating levels of compensation for public employees. More than half the city’s full-time lifeguards are paid a salary of over $100,000 and all but one of them collect more than $100,000 in total compensation including benefits.
When thinking about career options with high salaries, lifeguarding is probably not one of the first jobs to come to mind. But it apparently should. In one of Orange County’s most desirable beach destinations, Newport Beach, lifeguards are compensated all too well; especially compared with the county annual median household income of $71,735.
It might be time for a career change.
According to a city report on lifeguard pay for the calendar year 2010, of the 14 full-time lifeguards, 13 collected more than $120,000 in total compensation; one lifeguard collected $98,160.65. More than half the lifeguards collected more than $150,000 for 2010 with the two highest-paid collecting $211,451 and $203,481 in total compensation respectively. Even excluding benefits like health care and pension, more than half the lifeguards receive a total salary, including overtime pay, exceeding $100,000. And they also receive an annual allowance of $400 for “Sun Protection.” Many work four days a week, 10 hours a day.
I don't begrudge anyone whatever they earn, as long as they're not taking it from someone else by force. But these are government employees, and their compensation is taken from others by force.
If you live in Newport Beach, and put your foot down, and refuse to pay your share of this, and say "I'm not going to pay $200,000.00 per year to have Jack Johnson sit on a tower all day, watching damp supermodels frolic in the sand and the surf," the government will show up with guns at your house and take your assets or put you in a steel cage.
But all libertarian rants aside, how in the hell can you justify paying $200,000 per year to a freakin' lifeguard? Is it possible?
Well, yes. You just compare the compensation to that of other lifeguards in government jobs, and it all makes sense.
In a phone conversation, Brent Jacobsen, president of the Lifeguard Management Association, defended the lifeguard pay in Newport Beach: “We have negotiated very fair and very reasonable salaries in conjunction with comparable positions and other cities up and down the coast.” “Lifeguard salaries here are well within the norm of other city employees.” And therein is the problem: Local public worker pay has become all too generous and out of line with private sector equivalents.
On face, the compensation packages for these guards are staggering. But take into consideration the retirement benefits being paid to currently retired lifeguards and lifeguards who will retire at these pay levels in the future and the problem is further compounded. Lifeguards are able to retire with 90 percent of their salary, after only 30 years of work at as early as the age of 50.
Here's a video put out by a California Watchdog group (yes, that's an oxymoron) called Americans For Prosperity - California.
Note to The Aggie: Pack your bags. Pack up Fat Kitty. Pack up the idiot Labrador. We're going to California !!! (The City Of Los Angeles is hiring Duplicating Machine Operators, and I think I could work my way up to Senior Duplicating Machine Operator before retirement time. Hit the link.)
