Florence Snyder
In Leon County, the median household income is $47,000, and people who are lucky enough to have a full-time job are generally expected to work that job, you know, full-time.
At $75,829, plus benefits, Leon County Commissioners’ compensation is well above what most of their constituents earn, but it’s less than what Commissioners Nick Maddox and Jimbo Jackson collect at their other full-time job.
Maddox was just hired to head the Foundation for Leon County Schools at a salary of $78,000. Jackson makes $90,875 as principal of Ft. Braden School.
Maddox modestly assured the Tallahassee Democrat that he’s going to do a “great” job in both of his positions and if Jackson’s staff at Ft. Braden has any complaints about picking up their principal’s slack, it’s a safe bet they won’t be griping to reporters.
Maddox and Jackson did not invent the fiction that public officials can serve two masters. And the public didn’t especially mind in times and places when a public official’s salary was little more than gas money. In modern times, Maddox and Jackson are just a tiny tip of an iceberg of public officials who serve two, three, four and more masters at great cost to taxpayers. We’ve all gotten used to it, but that does not make it right.
