[gjr – I asked Supervisor Beason to expand on the recent raise the BoS voted for itself so as to give some needed background and nip any rumors in the bud.  For additional questions, Nate can be reached at his BoS email nate.beason@co.nevada.ca.us.  Many thanks to Nate for the prompt reply.]

George-
 
1. The BOS voted for a 2.3% COLA.  This is less than half the Social Security COLA (5.8%) for 2009. The last BOS increase was a 2% COLA in 2006.
2. The increase will become effective in Feb 2009.
3. If we are ever going to expand the opportunity for folks to serve on the BOS w/out the necessity of a second source of income, we need to gradually bring up the salary over time. Nobody on the current Board needs the money.
4. The county has $190 Million budget. The increase is @ $4,400/year. We are among the top six counties out of 58 that are not only financially solvent, but financially sound. We have a $19million reserve. Our state and federal legislators make 3-4 times as the BOS, yet they are billions in the red.
5. There are those who would prefer that we work for free. We average about 50+ hrs per week, and we spend a lot of time in Sacramento working to move forward on rural county issues. Quiet frankly, we are doing a lot of the work that our state legislators can't seem to get around to. We spend hours per week on a variety of boards, comissions, committess, etc in additon to our BOS work. We spend countless hours involved w/ community groups, constiuent issues and homeowners associations.
 
I made a six-figure income when I was in private industry. I would like to to think I'm worth $40k in the public sector.
 
I took a straw poll of 100 constituents during the past couple of weeks. Over 90% think the BOS is underpaid.
 
Hope this helps.