Miscalculating the governor's salary

It does not appear that the Government and members of the media are calculating the salary of the governor of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) correctly.A salary ought to be the amount of money that is available to the employee to spend as he or she wishes.Therefore, it is incorrect to term certain items as part of the salary package for the governor.It might be a cost to the employer but it is not salary.

Take, for example, $273,094 a year for security; that is a cost to employer but it is not available to the governor to spend as he wishes.In calculating the salary of the minister of finance no one adds the cost of the protective services.Nobody adds the cost of the secret service to the salary of a president of the United States of America (USA). Similarly, if the Government believes that the governor needs security, it cannot be seen as part of his salary.

That principle would also apply to entertainment. If it is required of the governor to entertain as part of his job, then entertainment allowance, though a cost to the employer, is not salary. All that should be done is he be required to produce the entertainment bills. Salary is for entertainment of his family and friends which are not job-related. It is ridiculous to attach the cost of hosting a state dinner to the salary of the head of state.

What about housing? If the job requires the person to live in a specific house, then it should not be seen as salary. At best, it can be perceived as a benefit to the employee but it is not salary. No one calculates the cost of staying in the USA's White House to the president's salary or the money paid to the support staff. However, if the person wants to stay in his or her house, then housing allowance ought to be calculated as part of salary.

Statutory deductions

To get a true picture of salary, it ought to be the amount left after statutory deductions, that is, legal compulsory deductions.

Any travel, local or overseas, that is required to do the job should not be at the expense of the employee but must be a cost to the employer. Otherwise, the next thing that will be done is adding the cost of the office space to an employee's salary.

Persons who comment on the BOJ governor's salary need to compute it correctly. And to determine whether it is a reasonable salary then the considerations should include qualifications, experience, degree of difficulty of the job, importance of the job, expected standard of performance, cost of living, expected standard of living of the employee and ability to pay. In other words, a BOJ governor's job would be just as important as the commissioner of police because of the two major problems facing Jamaica.

Additionally, the governor's salary should be more performance-based but, unfortunately, after a year on the job, the current governor has no agreed performance criteria. This has weakened the contract.

Finally, the BOJ governor's salary ought to have a relationship with the other salaries at the Bank of Jamaica. There should be a set percentage gap between the salaries of those persons he supervises and his. In addition, there should be a multiple by which the top salary should not exceed the bottom salary. Furthermore, it should not exceed a certain multiple of the minimum wage as a matter of principle.

The major problem in Jamaica is that, since Independence, top salaries as a multiple of the minimum wage, has increased dramatically.That is unsustainable. Salaries, while they must reflect the value placed on the job, ought to be reasonable and contextual.

Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church and author of 'The Cross and the Machete: Native Baptists of Jamaica - Identity, Ministry and Legacy'. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com