State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

A Difficult Reality for Those Who Want to Run Government 'More Like a Business'

Route Fifty: It’s a common refrain heard among some voters and candidates pursuing elected office: “Why can’t government be run more like a business?”

That’s a complicated question, naturally, and answers can’t be easily boiled down into a TV-friendly sound bite or campaign slogan—though plenty have tried. Here’s one area where small-government ideology barrels head-long into a real-world reality: The difference in what the public and private sectors can pay to attract top talent.

In Toledo, Ohio, The Blade recently reported that Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz has told civic leaders that salary caps imposed by the city council for certain city positions has created problems recruiting for key leadership posts in his administration. That included finding a chief of staff, whose salary was capped at $119,129. This month, the Toledo City Council approved a request from the mayor to increase the chief of staff salary cap to $125,000. (Katy Crosby, the executive director of the the Human Relations Council in Dayton, Ohio starts as Kapszukiewicz’s chief of staff on March 5.)

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