Government Appointee Pay Transparency? Nope.

When people talk about the pros and cons of creating transparent pay scales in a company, they often bring up as examples military and government compensation models, that are supposed to clearly list the expected pay for a particular position. But Kris Dunn, writing at Fistful of Talent dug a little deeper and found out that many of the government's transparent salaries...aren't.

Upon reviewing the latest "Plum book," which lists all the available positions and pay scales for the new Presidential administration, Dunn found that about 80 percent of the jobs don't include salary ranges.

Why not? The book explains that the salaries for those positions are "personal" -- that is, they're attached to the incumbent, not the position. And the rate for each appointee is determined on a case-by-case basis.

Dunn says he understands: "There's no way you can establish ranges for these leadership positions...because you need the best talent possible and you don't know where it's doing to come from or what it will cost."

So it seems that pay for the lion's share of these new administration employees will be determined by experience, skill, talent, and comparative worth in the marketplace, rather than according to a strict formula that doesn't take individual variance and value into account.

Huh.

It is just me -- or isn't that the way it should be?

(image courtesy Inside the Beltway Book Company)