Nevada Governor’s Staff Salaries Released

Certain things get caught in my craw and I jus’ can’t seem to cough them up. One is this Nevada news item:

“Nevada lawmakers will be able to workout during the upcoming legislative session thanks to new exercise equipment installed in an empty office on the third floor of the state’s legislature building. The two treadmills, two stairmasters and two elliptical machines come at a cost of $30,000 dollars to taxpayers.”

News item number two:

“Governor Brian Sandoval has released the salaries of some of his staffers. Chief of Staff Heidi Gansert will earn just under $125,000, Dale Erquiaga, Senior Advisor and Communications Director, about $120,000, Press Secretary Mary-Sarah Kinner around $75,000, with the governor making $141,000. The amounts are before factoring a 4.6 percent reduction, the amount state workers lost in 2009 when required to take a day off each month without pay.”

Meanwhile, the base-pay for a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps is only $26,638. Remember, these are the men and women charged with humping around Afghanistan and Iraq, wearing body armor and 80 pounds of equipment in all sorts of weather, day and night, and being shot up on a near-daily basis.

It appears it pays well in Nevada to be a professional politician. No wonder the state has a $3-billion budget shortfall.