By Steve Allen
Oxford Village President

I apologize to all of you for the lack of these articles in recent months ? its been a busy summer and fall for everyone.
n Now that some of the nagging Village/Township issues have bee laid to rest, we can proceed with the “Summit of Understanding that we had planned last year. The tentative dates will be January 31st and February 1st. Stay tuned for more details.
n The playground equipment, the colors, and the layout have been finalized for Kids Kingdom. Memorial Day weekend is just around the corner, so please sign-up at Parks and Rec to help build it. They can be reached at (248) 628-1720.
n The Oxford Community recently lost a very good friend ? Ken Adams. He never missed a meeting or an opportunity to challenge elected officials in an attempt to make Oxford a better place to live. In recent years, his health prevented his attendance at meetings, but his spirit lived on. This writer, personally, will miss him, his insight, and his questions and the community as a whole will miss his contributions.
What does it men to be a Governmental employee?
At a recent meeting of OPFEC (Jan. 15), I made a comment that has seemed to be widely misunderstood, misinterpreted, and generally modified to make for inflammatory conversation. Let me clear up this issue.
What I said was, a long time ago, those that worked for the Government were deemed “special” and that those thoughts were outdated and needed review.
The economy, taxpayer concerns, and the cry for Government to “be more like the private sector have necessitated those changes.
I was referring ONLY to costs generated by wage packages, benefits, holidays, accumulation of sick and personal days, and any other benefit that taxpayers in the private sector may not personally enjoy.
Working for the Government is as much of a personal choice as is working for a car company, being a doctor, being a lawyer, or any other profession.
There are however, jobs in the Government sector that have historically and always should garner all of the respect that one can muster.
A cop, a firefighter, an educator, and a soldier deserve our ultimate degree of respect and thanks, but do those positions entitle them to a greater standard of remuneration than anyone else? Should the taxpayer be asked to fund them at a higher rate than those in the private sector? The public, by and large, thinks not and is increasingly becoming more vocal about it.
As elected officials, it is our responsibility to ensure that costs are controlled and that taxpayers receive the maximum quality services at the lowest possible costs (within reason). No one should ever be allowed to become “larger than the job itself.”
If this goes on unchecked, situations such as with the current Superintendent of Oakland Schools would continue to flourish and soon become commonplace.
I am not asking that Government employees make less than anyone else, just receive parity.
A study of private sector jobs would yield the necessary information to resolve any discrepancies in the pay and benefits arena. This should be a matter of common sense. I can understand how the taxpaying public would begin to mistrust those who appear to become too comfortable off the backs of those that fund them.
This is NOT a jab at anyone that chooses to work for the Government, but merely a hard, cold fact of our current reality in America.
If the “fair share” that you, as a Government employee, are receiving exceeds what your taxpayers are receiving, the balance is too far off. It’s quite simple for most of us to understand, seemingly difficult for Governmental agencies to achieve.
Again I state that a cop, a firefighter, an educator, and a soldier deserve the ultimate degree of thanks and respect. Respect and thanks should never be confused with salaries and benefits.
I sincerely hope that my statement and position on this matter have been cleared up. I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on this. Please address your replies to the Oxford Leader’s Letters to the Editor section.
The opinions expressed in this column are the views of its author and may not reflect the opinions of the Village of Oxford, its employees, or its Village Council.