The Republican who’s running for state treasurer is criticizing the current office holder for failing to take a pay cut. Governor Chet Culver ordered a 10 percent across-the-board cut in the state budget last October and Culver cut his own salary by 10 percent. State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald’s salary was not impacted by Culver’s action.
Dave Jamison, Fitzgerald’s Republican opponent, says the treasurer failed a leadership test by failing to cut his own pay, too. “Even though the dollar amount may not be a large dollar amount — it’s not going to, of itself, save the budget — but I think it’s important to lead by example,” Jamison says.
Jamison has been Story County Treasurer since 1995 and last year Jamison led an effort to freeze the pay of county elected officials like himself because Story County workers weren’t getting pay increases. “It was important to me that they understood that I was in it with them,” he says of those county workers.
Jamison says Fitzgerald should have taken a pay cut of some sort, or perhaps some unpaid days off, to signal to employees in the treasurer’s office that the state budget situation is tight and everyone needs to do their part.