Salaries

Hundreds of people lined up on sun-drenched asphalt Saturday to see if they could get regular payouts, in the form of paychecks, from the new Maryland Live! Casino, a slots casino scheduled to open at Arundel Mills mall in about three months. "I hope I get lucky enough to get a position," said Mark Ellison, who's from West Baltimore. "They want people who are willing to go the extra mile so customers come in and enjoy spending their money. " The operators of what will be the state's largest casino hosted a job fair Saturday with the Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corp.

Baltimore is a good place for recent college graduates to settle down, according to a report released Thursday by major job- and apartment-hunting websites. Charm City has the right combination of entry-level job inventory, average entry-level salary and average monthly rent to rank 10th on a list of the best cities for new grads. The list was put together by the classified websites Careerbuilder.com and Apartments.com, which used their employment and rental listings to calculate the rankings.

I am writing in regards to the article you posted on salaries of state workers ("Coaches, doctors get top state pay" May 24). The problem with this is I am a state employee who puts my life on the line each and every day that I go to work, and I do not feel as though my full name and date of hire should be posted. I work short staffed everyday and in some very rough conditions that no one else would want to do. I am a correctional officer of 16 years in Jessup, and my job is to protect the public, the detainees, the employees and offenders housed behind the fences and walls that the average person has no knowledge of. My salary of $50,000 is hardly enough when you look at the type of work I do and the risk I take to do it. I am at risk of contracting AIDS, TB, head lice, MERSA, other childhood diseases as well, meningitis, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and melanoma and cancer.

Nearly two weeks ago, when it was revealed that Ravens outside linebacker Terrell Suggs had sustained a season-threatening tear of his Achilles tendon while training in Arizona, we reported that the Ravens could, theoretically, put Suggs on the non-football injury list if he was injured while working out away from the team's facility. By doing so, they could get off the hook for some or all of the linebacker's 2012 base salary. But in the same news story, we also wrote that it was unlikely that the Ravens would go that route . Jeff Zrebiec, The Sun's Ravens beat reporter, just reported that the Raven s have not had any internal discussion to this point about docking Suggs' pay after non-football injury, but that could always change.

Baltimore County government will begin posting the salaries of every county employee online beginning Friday, July 1. The salaries will be listed on the county's website at http://www.baltimorecountymd.gov , on the Human Resources page of the site. In a statement about the decision to post the salaries, County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said, "I am very pleased that our budget officials and staff members in the Office of Information Technology were able to complete this latest task as part of our ongoing effort to make government innovative, efficient and responsible.

Interesting that The Sun posts all Baltimore County Public Schools salaries. I feel you have every right to dig into our monetary lives for all to view, yet as quid pro quo, why don't you feel the pain of posting all of your employees' salaries? I'm sure you'd gain serious media attention, especially due to the growing lack of support for newspapers. Thanks again for reminding me why I do not spend my hard-earned money to read your newspaper. Talk about a teachable moment, yes?

Baltimore County has just implemented a very basic transparency measure that Howard County ought to copy. It has put the salary of each of its employees, from the county executive to part-time secretaries, online. Find the human resources page of the Baltimore County government website and you can download a PDF document that lists all 7,700, by name, in alphabetical order and includes their job titles. This is all information that the local government has stored digitally already, so compiling it for public use requires little in the way of additional time, expense or resources.

If Gov. Martin O'Malley wants to make some real money when his second term ends, he might want to apply for work at the University System of Maryland. The great majority of the 1,346 workers who match or beat the governor's $150,000 annual salary, including the 15 highest earners, work for the university system, according to a Baltimore Sun analysis of state employee salaries for 2010. Most of the exceptions are doctors with the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, a few judges and a scattering of others.

Musicians of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra agreed Thursday to take another salary hit in an effort to help the organization weather the continued effects of the recession. Players accepted a freeze for the 2010-2011 season and a 16.6 percent reduction for the two seasons after that. "We're devastated," said Jane Marvine, an English horn player and spokeswoman for the Players' Committee. "In the last decade, two times we had great contracts that were unfulfilled. This sets us back a decade."

Since 55 million retirees have received no cost of living increases for the last two years it only seems fair to freeze all government and elected officials' salaries until jobs in the private sector grow and tax revenues increase. Moreover, there should be no bonuses for government employees until the economy becomes healthy enough to increase tax revenues. These are ominous times and really tough decisions are needed. Printing and borrowing more money is not the answer. Bill Huppert

RG Steel LLC is cutting the salaries of managers and executives, including those at Sparrows Point in Baltimore County, because of weak economic conditions. The company sent a letter to employees Monday that said it would temporarily slash the pay of salaried workers by 10 percent beginning May 1. Company executive pay was reduced by 25 percent. RG Steel will also stop contributing to the 401(k) plans of the employees affected. "We view this as temporary until the company can get on better financial footing," said spokeswoman Bette Kovach.

The former president of Baltimore International College allegedly misused more than $200,000 for personal meals, antiques and unapproved salary, according to a legal filing submitted Tuesday by the remaining board of the defunct culinary school. Roger Chylinski, who founded the college and served as its president from 1980 to 2010, sued Baltimore International for $5 million last year, saying that he was not receiving a monthly retirement benefit of $17,000 promised by his contract.

With free agency set to begin on March 13, there have been a lot of questions about where the Ravens sit with the salary cap. That cap hasn't been officially set, though it's expected to be similar to last year's number. Either way, all indications are that the Ravens are in decent shape with the cap, certainly in better position than they have been the past couple of offseasons. That doesn't mean that the Ravens have the room to go on a free-agent shopping spree, because that won't happen.

Even as Baltimore principals have been given an unprecedented amount of responsibility over the past four years under schools CEO Andrés Alonso, their average salary has remained among the lowest in the state. The average salary for city principals this school year is about $108,000, just $2,800 more than their pay in 2008, according to an analysis of school system employee salaries obtained through a Maryland Public Information Act request by The Baltimore Sun. That leaves city principals — who lead schools with the largest and most academically challenged populations in the state — behind most of their colleagues in the metropolitan area and only slightly above rural counties on the Eastern Shore.

As more Baby Boomers start receiving Social Security benefits, more and more strain will be put on that system. Social Security is supposed to be paid for with payroll taxes, but President Obama and his party, with the foolish support of the GOP, call for reducing those taxes to spur economic growth. The results are in, and growth is anemic at best. Unemployment is well north of 8 percent and would have been even higher if so many people hadn't already given up looking for work.

On May 27, 2010, the Baltimore County Council voted on legislation that would reduce pension benefits for thousands of government workers. The bill, part of a plan by then-County Executive James T. Smith Jr. to shore up the finances of the pension system, limited cost-of-living increases for county retirees and raised the amount of their paychecks county workers were required to contribute. But a last-minute amendment added to the bill would turn out to be worth tens of thousands of dollars to three of the councilmen who voted it into law. County Executive Kevin Kamenetz and former councilmen Stephen G. Samuel Moxley and Vincent J. Gardina, both of whom have been hired into top positions in the Kamenetz administration, are taking advantage of a new provision of the law that allows them to earn their county salaries, accrue new retirement benefits and bank their council pensions for a lump-sum payout when they retire for good.

In the recession, high salaries and other compensation for corporate executives have become controversial. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered publicly owned companies to give shareholders the right to voice an opinion how much their executives are paid. Two Maryland companies, Bell Atlantic and Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., were among 10 major U.S. companies affected by the ruling.The Evening Sun would like to know if you think investors should have a say in the salaries for executives.

Baltimore area hospital CEOs and presidents boast seven-figure salaries, club and gym memberships, and paid financial planning and tax services as part of compensation packages from their nonprofit employers. Nearly a dozen hospitals covered country club dues for top executives. Carroll Hospital, in reporting the compensation to the IRS, disclosed that it requires its CEO to be a member of the exclusive local clubs "to facilitate hospital interaction with the community" and because of the "potential for donors.

Howard County's school board agreed to a salary range of about $275,000 for a new superintendent, in addition to approving other recommendations made by a consulting agency. The board held a special meeting Wednesday night to discuss the suggested salary range, a dozen characteristics with which to evaluate job candidates, and a brochure suggested by Iowa-based search firm Ray and Associates, which was chosen last month by the board to conduct the search. Superintendent Sydney Cousin announced this year that he is stepping down in June, at the end of his contract.

A couple of years ago, Tammy Schneider, a manager at Glass Jacobson, approached her higher-ups with an idea. The Baltimore accounting firm had business units devoted to specific industries, but Schneider wanted to create one entirely for women. "They were very supportive and they've given me the flexibility to run with it," said Schneider, who is now director of the Women in Business Practice, which offers free finance seminars to women business owners and others. "The culture here [provides]