But if County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, Prosecutor David Gorcyca, Sheriff Michael Bouchard, Clerk William Caddell, Treasurer C. Hugh Dohaney and Drain Commissioner John McCulloch are to be believed, their request for an 8.6-percent pay hike has nothing to do with greed. It's about pride. It seems that, even after factoring in the 4-percent pay increase every Oakland County employee received last year, Oakland's Big Six lag behind their counterparts in Wayne County, whose compensation is tied to the generous pay raises Michigan legislators recently approved for state elected officials, including themselves. Pay a sheriff's deputy or assistant pathologist substantially less than he can make doing the same work somewhere else, and the best prospects will gravitate elsewhere. But the factors that go into an elected official's job selection are more complex.
Most pols have limited mobility, at least within the public sector.
Whatever else happens to Gorcyca or Bouchard, Wayne County is unlikely to hire them away. Among Oakland's elected officials, Patterson probably can make the best case for a raise, even if the wisdom of making it at a time when some constituents are losing their own jobs is debatable. It's less clear why the other five elected office holders should be automatically entitled to whatever Patterson gets. I'm not sure. Thus, county commissioners will take up the elected officeholders' pay hike request even as a majority of the six supplicants are drawing the boundaries of the commissioners' home districts.