In Romania we have a stratified public administration, like the castes in India, where the Brahmins of finance, justice or those with epaulettes have nothing to do with the pariahs of culture or the mayors of communes; their lives follow different rules. The latter – or we, the citizens – cannot even find out what the real salary level is in the blessed institutions of the state, because it is deliberately hidden behind a screen of complex agreements, bonuses and allowances that are difficult to quantify, precisely because of this. that we do not have a rational public discussion and consensus on transparent and accepted rules.

Not even for civil servants, who in Romania make up just over 10% of the approximately 1.3 million state employees, because, unlike in France, scientists or doctors from public hospitals are not considered here. public function – we do not have a single and transparent grid of fees. Although we have largely copied the French administrative system, in reality we have as many civil servants as there are ministries and agencies, who are better or worse paid depending on their influence on budget decisions, the ingenuity of the leaders or their party weight, and probably the number of senior officials appointed on the minister’s side to direct and/or spy on him. And if this applies to 10% of civil servants, then what else can be said about the remaining 90% of state employees who are not official employees, most of whom are teaching and medical personnel?

There is zero chance of getting public sector levies right, acceptable to the people and sustainable to the budget, on the path it has been following for nearly twenty years, as Romania’s economy has stabilized after transition fluctuations and entered a growth trajectory determined by the gravitational pull of the EU. That is, with those periodic rags that we see, putting garbage under the rug, power games between ministries, in which the one with more political power does his salary tricks under the table, and the more embittered ones pull the plug. the earth, every now and then dotted with great outbursts of discontent like this now.

What would be the alternative?In theory, everything is simple, it’s elementary school arithmetic: every year there is a salary amount determined by the income to the budget, which obviously cannot be exceeded. Let’s rate it 100%. We know how many state employees we have on the payroll; say 1.3 million. We divide the amount by the number of people and get the average salary for the budget system, denoted by a factor of 1. From here we start a big national negotiation to determine who will be below average and who will be above average, by how much, throwing on the table all the arguments that you’ve heard before: seniority, training, importance of the field, risks, degree of competition from the private sector for the relevant profession, etc. All legitimate factors are put into this common cauldron and are left to boil for negotiations between institutions and social partners for six months, a year, if necessary. Should justice have an average coefficient of 3, health – 1.5, education – a fixed 1, and municipal officials – 0.85? Should there be different levels? And what then should be the difference between beginners and seniors? I don’t know, but all this should be decided together, in front of our eyes, and not behind the scenes.

It’s not easy, it’s a lot of fuss and hypocrisy – but we always have that, don’t we? The idea is that eventually you end up with a matrix of coefficients, some sub-unitary, some supra-unitary, which you multiply by the number of equivalent positions and the average salary for that year will give a fixed amount of 100%. The logic of this system is iron, you can’t deviate from it anyway, because even today you can’t pay more money than you have. A huge difference compared to what is happening now is that the matrix would be transparent, open to discussion and agreed upon by all (please, the majority). Today, instead, the same total is divided chaotically and opaquely, distributed across borders, dispersed among institutions, groups that pull others to move up the salary pyramid, and so on. This is what destructive competition looks like in a zero-sum game with no rules, where strength always wins. And the ones who will lose here systematically, I’m afraid, are those who are now on the street, because the concessions they may receive will soon be eroded by either inflation or the midnight overturning of influential budget sectors, as always.

Another advantage salary scales expressed in coefficients and not in RON amounts, would consist in the fact that it should not be changed from year to year: if revenues to the budget increase along with GDP, then the monetary value of coefficient 1 also increases proportionally, so both a civil servant with an official salary of 0.75 and one who has salary of 1.25, they will immediately find out how much he receives additionally. If we want absolute wages to grow faster, there is only one way: reduce the number of workers by 1.3 million so that the value of the coefficient of 1 is higher; conversely, if we hire more, the value of 1 decreases. It’s like a water mattress.

Finally, a transparent and rational system will allow us to design thoughtfully acceptable level of differentiation: let’s say a 1:6 ratio between the smallest and largest sheet in the budget system. Or another; as much as we want, or rather as much as we all agree to in the great national negotiations. Today, in a system based on inter-institutional chaos, power trading and programmed opacity, we cannot even accurately calculate this ratio. There is always the need for a research project, force extraction of data from various sources, threats of lawsuits and Law 544 – and even then you cannot be sure at the end that you have discovered all the spins with salaries and fringe benefits from the corners of the Romanian bureaucracy.

The paradox is that the iron logic of budget restrictions works constantly, because there is no other way: the total amount of levs must be in the national envelope, because money does not fall from the sky; and the distribution of money among the 1.3 million budget holders is obviously an average, min/max ratio, or whatever other measure of dispersion one prefers. They are simply invisible, covered by a thick fog, which is supported and neglected by the authorities, but also on purpose: why find out some things, just to get people in the head? If they then ask for a seat at the decision-making table? We don’t keep them in the dark like we do now, which allows us to promise everyone things that add up to 100%, so it’s clear they’ll only apply randomly and temporarily, but they’ll only notice later in the day, and preferably not on my timeline?

In other words, the rules of budget arithmetic work no matter what one or the other shouts, only politicians and commentators bury them in an ocean of populist rants, tantrums and demonstrative displays of virtue until they understand nothing. Citizens are treated like children who must be kept from making difficult, albeit inevitable, decisions because they are too immature to make them, so they are lulled to sleep with songs and candy so they don’t tire of thinking. How will I, Minister, explain to the categories of employees that they have a salary ratio of 0.7 or 0.8 because the arguments x, y, z, what, I have lost my mind?.. Read the entire article and comment on Contributors. ro