WHO'S MAKING WHAT

All over Lee County these days, people keep making money, and some people keep making it hand over fist. While housing prices may ebb and flow like the tides, new residents keep arriving, and businesses keep thriving.

Government agencies and non-profit corporations are businesses of a kind, too, even if their managers (elected or appointed) often seem to make less than those running similarly sized organizations in the private sector.

But that doesn't mean the people who manage public organizations here are doing poorly. A glance at their salaries suggests public officials and managers in Lee County are not going to starve anytime soon.

They might not see their families anytime soon, either. For those at the top, their assistants say the 40- hour week is a fairy tale, and 60 to 70 hours per week is standard.

"Don is working before work starts and after work ends every day," says Pete Winton, an assistant county manager who has worked under Don Stilwell, the county manager, for 12 years. "He's always going to functions - that's not parties, that's functions, and it's work."

Lest you conclude that the top workers are more ethical because they work harder, however, keep in mind the comment of author Barbara Ehrenreich, a Florida Keys resident who writes about working class and poor people in the book, "Nickled and Dimed."

"Personally," she notes, "I have nothing against work, particularly when performed, quietly and unobtrusively, by someone else. I just don't think it's an appropriate subject for an ethic."

Maybe not, but Pete Winton points out that skill and judgment, if not work ethic, have something to do with the value of highly paid leaders, too.

"One of the hardest things at this level is hiring the right people," he says. "You shouldn't - you couldn't - do everything. So you try not to replicate yourself, you try to hire those who have other skills, and that's hard to do."

Still, many may find it difficult to feel sorry for these leaders. In a county where the median household income is now about $40,300, and where males average roughly $31,250 with females lagging at $24,400, none of the officials listed below make less than $100,000 per year, except elected officials (the politicians, not the 20th judicial circuit court judges, 50 of them, who make well over $100,000). And some top dogs make much more than $100,000.

For some, benefits include generous monthly car allowances or cars, thorough health insurance packages, significant pension plans and the like.

In return for all that, these hardworking men (the top public appointees in Lee County are almost universally men) either manage or help to manage large, complex organizations that provide a comfortable life: fire and police protection,

hospital care, a responsible justice system, schools for our children, institutions

of higher education for our new leaders, decent roads, good water and additional utilities, plus hundreds of others.

They're careerists, the kind, perhaps, who led feminist Gloria Steinem to note, "I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career."

They get paid well, sometimes through complex systems of weights and measures, if you will. For example, the state legislature determines the salaries of all 10 elected officials in the county (and in all 66 other Florida counties), by comparing the number of people living here, the number of people arriving here annually, and the pay of state government careerists. From that unpredictable mix, they determine a salary.

In cities such as Cape Coral, voter apathy hurts the incomes of elected officials, who are paid according to the number of people who register to vote: 20 cents a voter for the mayor, and 17 cents for each council member. As you'll see, they don't make much.

At Lee Memorial Health System, where Jim Nathan, president and CEO, is the highest paid leader of any government or nonprofit organization in the region, his salary is maintained neatly at the 50th percentile of pay for those in similar occupations, nationwide. That figure - greater than the salaries of the president and vice president of the United States - is determined by something called the "Watson-Wyatt Worldwide Executive Compensation Market Analysis," which surveys the national and southeast market for organizations of similar size.

Nathan turned down a contract offered by the hospital board that would have paid him much more than the $544,100 he currently earns.

"The time came when (his contract) was going to be on the table, and he said, 'Linda, I don't want that up for consideration - I don't even want to discuss it,'" recalls Linda Brown, a Hospital Board member who chaired the board last year.

"He felt the hospital system had enough challenges, and he did not want or need the money, but we felt it was important to keep him on a par with his colleagues, so we passed a policy to keep him at the 50th percentile, and not let him drop too far behind. And there were no bonuses or special considerations for him.

"Being a public organization, the record is public, and it's a horrible thing for a person to go through, to have their salary discussed in the media - for Jim it's the most awful thing."

Nathan is married to his job. "The only time Jim is not working is when he's sleeping," says Linda Hammer, his executive assistant.

Fort Myers Police Chief Hilton Daniels, who gets paid a lot less than Nathan, is in the same boat, like Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott, and many others, who are also job grooms, wedded to the work.

"The job is 24/7," Daniels says. "I never have any down time, no personal time. Even if I go on vacation, I always have to be ready to come back to work."

And the tensions weigh in, too. "The entire time we were working on the Midfield extension (at Southwest Florida International Airport), I don't think he ever slept well or stopped worrying," says Barbara Anne Urrutia, a Port Authority spokeswoman describing her boss, Bob Ball, the executive director of the Lee County Port Authority, who has also had to manage all the changes following 9/11.

Meanwhile way out east in Lehigh Acres, Fire Chief Donald Adams is beset by a host of problems - his tradeoff for a choice salary.

"We face multiple problems: the level of service we have to offer, the tremendous growth. People are reluctant to increase taxes, but they're demanding a high level of service, so it's politics. Then we have these tremendous wildfires. We don't have anything available to protect citizens when they hit.

"And we have to juggle and bounce other aspects of operations - for example, we also run an ambulance service. We'll be on call, then another call comes in, and another comes in...the level of service is difficult to keep up. It's an emergency. Growth is so rapid we're behind by 10 years, and we're trying to play catch up. And in the face of all that, we've got tax reform knocking at the door."

So probably these salaries aren't entirely without merit, suggests Joseph Paterno, executive director of the Southwest Florida Workforce Development Board, who is under fire for his own salary - $176,000 - and financial bungling that has left his agency with a $485,000 shortfall.

"If you take a look at the budget of Lee County, and compare that to a business in the private sector, how much will that CEO, that person running the billiondollar corporation, be making? Probably a lot more than somebody in the public sector."

Sure enough. In Lee, where the capital and operating budgets together amount to more than $2 billion, the county manager, Don Stilwell, probably makes far less than a CEO in a similarly-sized private business.

On the other hand, he makes more than Gov. Charlie Crist, who oversees a $72 billion state budget. So we probably won't hear any complaints. What they make
>> President George W. Bush: $400,000
>> Vice President Dick Chaney: $208,100
>> Florida Governor Charlie Crist: $133,000
>> Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp: $127,400
LEE MEMORIAL HEALTH SYSTEMS:
>> Jim Nathan, president and chief executive
offi cer: $554,100
>> John Wiest, chief financial offi cer: $351,915
>> Mary McGillicudy, chief legal offi cer:
$216,200
>> Bob Simpson, president and CEO of LeeSar,
Inc.: $225,200
LEE COUNTY APPOINTED OFFICIALS
>> Don Stilwell, county manager: $237,000
>> David Owen, county attorney: $205,500
>> William Hammond, deputy county manager:
$148,500
>> Diana Parker, chief hearing examiner:
$142,612
>> James Lavender, director of public works:
$139,500
>> Holly Schwartz, assistant county manager:
$133,500
>> Pete Winton, assistant county manager:
$121,000
LEE COUNTY APPOINTED OR ELECTED OFFICIALS
>> Bob Ball, executive director, Lee County Port
Authority: $210,000
>> T. Wayne Gale, Lee County Mosquito Control
director: $155,000
>> Mike Scott, sheriff (elected): $148,000
>> Charlie Green, Clerk of Courts (elected):
$139,500
>> Cathy Curtis, tax collector (elected):
$139,500
>> Ken Wilkinson, property appraiser (elected):
$139,500
>> Charles Ferrante, chief deputy sheriff:
$138,900

>> Sharon L. Harrington, supervisor of elections
(elected): $120,500
Commissioners (5, elected): $82,785.
EDUCATION
>> Kenneth Walker, Edison College district
president: $225,000
>> Richard Pegnetter, Florida Gulf Coast University
    presdient, $250,000
>> James Browder, Lee County superintendent
of schools: $159,700
20th JUDICIAL CIRCUIT
>> Judges (50): $145,000
>> Steve Russell, state attorney: $153,000
POLICE CHIEFS
>> Hilton Daniels, chief, Fort Myers: $125,000
>> Robert Petrovitch, chief, Cape Coral:
$122,000
FIRE CHIEFS
>> Kenny Dobson, chief, Fort Myers: $110,200
>> Bill Van Helden, chief, Cape Coral: $121,300
>> Donald Adams, chief, Lehigh Acres Fire
District: $122,000
>> Nat Ippolito, chief, San Carlos Park Fire
District: $99,500
FORT MYERS ELECTED AND APPOINTED OFFICIALS
>> Jim Humphrey, mayor: $84,094
>> Anthony Shoemaker, city manager:
$125,000
>> City council members: $32,600
CAPE CORAL ELECTED AND APPOINTED
OFFICIALS:
>> Eric Feichthaler, mayor: $19,100
>> Council members: $16,300
>> Terry Stewart, city manager: $157,600