Initially we had the town of Silverthorne increase their pay scale for all employees because they had a budget overage of about $500,000 for wages. Nobody, including the Summit Daily News bothered to ask how many positions were still unfilled. Was it five positions at $100,000, or was it 10 positions at $50,000? Most likely the latter.

What did Silverthorne do? They raised salaries for everybody, probably leaving those unfilled positions with a very small increase, which, I would imagine, are still unfilled. 

Not to be outdone, the town of Dillon raised their employee salaries to keep up with the town of Silverthorne. Now we have the town of Breckenridge, where the biggest turnover is public works and the police department. But, rather than focus on those two departments, the Breckenridge Town Council is going to spend $1 million on giving everybody a $3 per hour raise (similar to Silverthorne). 

If a private restaurant had plenty of wait-staff and bartenders, but no cooks, would they give everybody a raise, or would they focus on cooks? If a local bank had plenty of loan officers but no tellers, who would they focus on?

Ah, the pleasure of being a government entity based upon local tax dollars with little to no oversight.  And, now that the governments have raised wages, the private-business sector will have to raise wages — and the local inflation spiral continues. To paraphrase the War of 1812, “We have met the enemy … and it is the government!”