County Administrator? No, that's a bit beyond my pay grade. And cops and firemen got paid a percentage based on overtime hours, which they padded outrageously. They were not County Commission employees, they were Department of Public Safety. Our Sheriff back then is now a convicted felon, look him up, Ken Jenne. That was a racket, and a big scandal when the news got out. I was on salary. My overtime was never paid for, I just took a later bus home.

I'm not complaining, I feel my state pension was fair, I had 20 years in the system (that counts other state employment I had, plus converted military time I bought back, etc. But my Florida Retirement System would not have matched my salary unless I had spent almost 40 years in the system. Of course, my salary was much lower than for comparable work in the private sector. I started out at Charlotte County at 40% of what I was earning in Mountain View when I got layed off. And when I finally retired, I was earning the same I was 20 years earlier in California, and that is NOT correcting for inflation, either.

And of course, when they hired me, I was told with a straight face, "Our compensation is lower than the private sector, but we have an excellent retirement package." The much-touted "job security" evaporated, along with our County Administrator, which is why I'm not working right now.

The grass is always greener, etc, etc. I calculated once that if I had not been laid off in 1990 from TRW, I would have been able to retire 9 years earlier. So much for those "higly paid municipal employees". Those 6-figure salaries are only for suits, and you Silly Valley engineers.