Council aides bashed as waste of money

With Salt Lake County government hunkering down after the discovery of inappropriate usage of county-owned vehicles, some people are pointing to the County Council's personal aides as another example of waste.

"If we want to talk about perks, we should look at our administrative assistants," Council Council Chairman Steve Harmsen said. "That's what's really bugged me."

At various times over the past few years Harmsen and others have attacked the administrative assistant system as being divisive and financially wasteful. Each of the nine part-time council members has a full-time aide, and many people in county government say the aides collectively are not pulling their weight.

"You go through the council office at virtually any time of day and it's like a ghost town," one county official said.

Each aide earns $50,980, which collectively equates to almost half a million taxpayer dollars a year. Some council members have attempted to raise aide salaries, given that they're lower than salaries of aides to other government officials, but have been shot down.

"I've just never bought into that about people not respecting our aides because they don't make as much money," Councilman Russell Skousen said. "We pay them X amount, and it's a great job."

Even Councilman Joe Hatch, who supports larger salaries and who, like every other council member, praises the performance of his own aide, says some aides are dead weight.

"There's no question that if a couple of them were mine I'd fire them," he said.

It's difficult to quantify the aides' performance, given that many of their responsibilities take them out of the office — community council meetings, meetings with other county officials, meeting with constituents. While many in county government are vague on what exactly the aides' responsibilities are, basically they are — or are supposed to be — the eyes and ears and support system of the council members they report to, doing research, advising on policy and serving as the council member's proxy. (Unbeknownst to many in the county, there is a written job description for the position.)

While some point to Chad Bennion, for example, aide to Councilman Marv Hendrickson, as one who is very often out of the office, Bennion himself estimates he works an average of more than 40 hours a week on county business, and Hendrickson staunchly defends his performance.