Overpaid
POTTSTOWN, PA – In case you haven’t been paying attention. Here’s a newsflash: Pottstown Borough Manager Mark Flanders is overpaid. Grossly overpaid.
As a Pottstown taxpayer, you should be outraged. All members of Borough Council (who voted unanimously for Flanders’ hiring) should be drawn and quartered…preferably in front of Borough Hall. How dare they spend our taxpayer money is such a frivolous and reckless manner.
Do you know what the average salary for a Borough Manager in Pottstown is? It’s $48,083. Do you know how much Flanders currently rakes in as Pottstown’s Borough Manager? $120,000.
Anybody who has ever searched or applied online for a job knows how easy it is to research a salary for a position. Here are two graphs from CareerBuilder.com and SimplyHired.com that support our valid case that Mark Flanders is overpaid.
SimplyHired.com notes an average salary of $41,000. CareerBuilder.com notes an average salary of $55,167. The average of the two salaries is $48,083. That means that Flanders’ current salary of $120,000 is 60% higher than the average for a typical Borough Manager salary in the 19464 zipcode.
And what has Mark Flanders done to deserve such a bump in pay? It might be slightly more palpable if Flanders actually reduced crime in Pottstown during his tenure as Police Chief…but we all know that wasn’t the case. Crime actually increased in Pottstown during the ten years of 2001-2011 while Flanders was in charge.
“Mmm, yeah, I’m going to have to go ahead and ask all of you loathsome taxpayers to pay me an excessive salary that’s totally unjustified…”
And to add insult to injury, council thought it fit that Flanders receive a $20,000 increase in salary, even though crime increased in the borough. An increase in crime results in an increase in salary in Pottstown.
The only slightly comprehendible reason that Flanders received a 20% pay increase and was selected for the position (even though he has absolutely no government management experience or degreed government management education) was due to his hiring of Bruce Castor, one of the current Montgomery County Commissioners, as his lawyer to legally intimidate in order to be hired.
What a sham. What an absolute and complete sham.
Shame on you Pottstown Borough Council for rolling over…once again…into making yet another terribly bad decision for our town. A decision that costs us taxpayers more money…and leaves us stuck with an unqualified, underperforming 33 year Pottstown public servant managing the borough. A true act of malice if there ever was one.
“Obviously crime pays, or there’d be no crime.” ~ G. Gordon Liddy
P.S. – Want to make more money than a Pharmacist, Engineering Manager or Sales Director? Apply for Pottstown’s Borough Manager position! You don’t need an advanced degree…but you will need to hire a good lawyer to bully your way in if you want the job!
http://www.philly.com/philly/jobs/10_Jobs_in-demand_where_you_can_make_at_least_100K.html
You know this doesn’t take into account the fact that he’s drawing on his retirement as Police Chief…
What is his “real” annual income; after all, being Boro Mgr is career #2! Will there be a move to an even higher level of gov’t should Mr. Castor run for Governor and should he get elected?!?!? Perhaps Mr. Castor fought (or intimidated) so strenuously for Mr. Flanders since he needed to “beef up” his resume for a potential future job in Harrisburg?!?
Just a thought!
Either way, to me, it seems silly to give this man the job at a higher salary then the last guy and then give him back an Asst., too!!! Is that a reflection on his inability to do the job w/o a 2nd in command? Perhaps, it is strictly to set up a patsy to take the fall for his inexperience – I’d watch out, Erica!
I don’t think Council is sending a positive message to “tuned in” residents! Perhaps the new mission statement should simply say ‘You get less for more in Pottstown!’.
SAD, indeed!