THIS Is One Reason Why Local Elections Matter

While most people focus (almost exclusively) on Presidential elections, your local City, School Board and County Elections can have an even bigger impact on your day to day life. Here is a classic example of why...

Bob Vogel is going to use his presidency of the Scott County Board to talk about
the commissioners' per diem payments.
In addition to making $44,943 last
year, a figure that was upped to $47,010 this year, the commissioners collect a
$40 per diem for attending board meetings and other committees.

Remember....these are supposedly part time jobs.

A lot of focus has been put on the state legislators per diem claims. The Belle Plaine Herald decided to look at the county level and made some startling discoveries.

According to the Belle Plaine Herald, this is what each
commissioner collected in per diem payments last year:
- Jon Ulrich,
$5,320;
- Jerry Hennen, $5,280;
- Barbara Marschall, $5,080;
- Joe
Wagner, $1,720;
- and Vogel, $760.
Vogel did not take per diems for
attending the county board meetings nor for in-county committee
assignments.

It should be noted that the county commissioner who lives the closest to the county government center (Jerry Hennen of Shakopee) collected the second highest amount of per diem payments and the county commissioner who lives the furthest away (Vogel from New Prague) collected the least!

This, in a nutshell, is why your local races are just as important as the Presidential elections. These local officials might not get the same amount of press that the national officials do, but the money that they waste, combined with that of the state and federal governments add up to real dollars.....dollars that come out of your pocketbook and mine!