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tazzygirl -> RE: In these times,how can the White House justify this? (8/23/2011 10:02:33 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: punisher440
You asked for links for Michael J. Gottlieb,I assume you believe everything in the Huffington Post don't you?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/04/white-house-salaries-rele_n_633920.html#s109568&title=David_Axelrod
This is the list for 2010,with Gottlieb making $114,000 in 2010.Fastward to 2011.Do you trust the L.A. Times?
http://spreadsheets.latimes.com/white-house-salaries/
Oh my,there is Michael J making $130,500 inspite of freezes on White House salaries.And yes,same position although the White House says he has additional duties.And I really have to wonder why someone in Toronto has to question why a tax payer that lives in the U.S. might be a little upset that while the rest of the country has pretty much had to tighten their belts,the government[in BOTH parties] seem to think we taxpayers have bottomless pockets.
At the top of the chart is Matthew Vogel, who received a $59,100 pay increase in 2011 — the largest dollar increase on the list. That was the result of a big promotion. Vogel served as the associate director of communications for economics in 2010. He was promoted to special assistant to the president for economic policy in 2011, with his annual salary increasing from $71,400 to $130,500. Vogel is now receiving the same salary as Peter P. Swire, who held that job in 2010 before leaving to become a law professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University.
Salaries for other "special assistant to the president" titles showed that $130,500 per year has been the standard for the past three years — with no increases for those holding those jobs.
The largest percentage increase went to Kevin Lewis, who saw his salary rise from $42,000 to $78,000 — an 86 percent salary hike. He was promoted from press assistant to director of African-American media at a slightly lower salary than his predecessor. Lewis replaced Corey A. Ealons, who earned $79,560 as the White House director of African-American media in 2010. Ealons left the White House to become a senior vice president at VOX Global, a public affairs and communications firm.
As we said, 19 staffers on the list received promotions in 2011. Of those, 14 were promoted into existing job titles — including Vogel and Lewis — making it easy to compare their salaries with their predecessors. Of the 14, six received the same pay, five received less, and three received more.
What about the other five promotions? Well, it's not possible to make direct salary comparisons in those cases because job titles changed. For example, Jessica Wright went from being deputy director of scheduling for the president in 2010 to deputy assistant to the president and director of scheduling in 2011 — a clear promotion from deputy director to director. But her current job title didn't exist in 2010 exactly as it is now.
There were two notable exceptions: Heather Zichal and Andrea Turk, both of whom received big raises with no change in title.
Heather Zichal has served as the deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change since 2009. In 2009 and 2010, her annual salary was $100,000. In 2011, her salary jumped 40 percent to $140,000 per year. Andrea Turk served as the director of information services, starting in 2010. Her salary went up 40 percent from $50,000 to $70,000 per year in 2011, even though her title remained the same.
Upon taking office, Obama imposed a salary freeze — which is still in effect — for White House staffers earning more than $100,000. Turk was earning less than $100,000, and Zichal was at (not above) $100,000. So technically, even Zichal's pay raise didn't violate Obama's promise.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz explained the White House salary increases this way to Gawker: Schultz, July 6: Pay increases were given for a variety of reasons, ranging from promotions to additional work responsibilities. We asked Schultz specifically about Zichal and Turk, and he did not go much beyond his response to Gawker. "In both instances, because of restructuring, both staffers assumed additional work responsibilities," he told us. Zichal's job title did not change, but she took over the responsibilities of her former boss, Carol Browner, who had been the assistant to the president for energy and climate change. Browner was not replaced and Politico wrote a profile of Zichal in April that said she "took over the energy and climate portfolio this year from Carol Browner." Browner earned $172,200 in 2010.
The bottom line, however, is that White House salaries — both overall and on average — decreased this year.
Our analysis of the White House data shows that 466 paid staffers received a total of $38.8 million in salaries in 2010, an average of $83,254. In 2011, 451 paid employees received a total of $37.1 million for an average of $82,309. (In both years, there were three unpaid staffers listed in the annual report to Congress.)
Below is our chart of the White House staffers who appeared in Gawker's top 20 list. We included job titles along with their salary increases, so you can see that in nearly all cases the salary increase came with a new job title. The two staffers whose titles did not change are in bold.
http://factcheck.org/2011/08/top-20-white-house-raises/
So, they restructured, gave additional responsibilities to some people, gave raises to those below $100,000, as per the raise freeze, and spent less in 2011 than he did in 2010 for the staff....
and yet you still complain?
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