It was nice to walk around town today and hear people mention my story in Sunday's paper on City Hall employee's salaries. A lot of people thought it was interesting, City Hall employees, by and large, didn't seem to think it was so great -- with the exception of one very excited deputy commissioner.

I did realize today that I omitted a few important statistics, so I thought I'd share them with you here. According to 2003 census data, the national average annual wage increase in the private sector was 3.8 percent -- slightly higher than the annual cost-of-living adjustment for employees in the CSEA Unions in Saratoga Springs, but lower, once you factor in annual "step" increases, which can vary from 1 to 2 percent.

By contrast to Saratoga Springs, annual wage increases for county employees went down from 2003 to 2005. In the '03-'04 fiscal year, employees got a 3.6 percent increase. In the '04-'05 fiscal year, wages increased 3.4 percent. This may seem like a small difference, but compounded over a thousand employees, and suddenly it's a significant dollar figure.

So employees here in the city, by and large, are doing pretty well. Of course, you could argue that living in Saratoga Springs necessitates paying for a higher cost of living, but then again, many city employees do not live within the city limits.