Last week I gave a brief account of the meteoric rise of County Council Chief Executive, Bryn Parry-Jones', salary.
Today, I will outline a parallel development - the huge increase in the allowances paid to the elected members.
Way back in 1996 (five years ago), when the County Council came into being, a scale of Special Responsibility Allowances (SRAs) for the head honchos was agreed.
The Leader - then Eric Harries - was to be paid £5,000, in addition to the basic allowance of £3,815 received by all councillors, giving him almost nine grand to supplement his teacher's pension.
The Chairman of full Council was also paid an extra £5,000, while Chairmen of committees were paid an extra £2,500 giving the a total "package" of £6,000 and their deputies £1,250 on top of their basic allowances leaving them to get by on a measly £4,500..
In January 2000, I reported in the Mercury that the Welsh Assembly had accepted an independent report by Professor Boyne of Cardiff University and was recommending that the basic allowance for all members should be raised from £3,815 to £5,325 (40%) and that there should also be substantial increases in SRAs.
Naturally, the County Council, which had the discretion to modify or postpone implementaion of the proposals, voted in favour of the changes which cost the taxpayer an extra £130,000 a year
The SRA of the leader, Maurice Hughes, was more than doubled from £5,450 to £13,505 giving him a total take, including his basic allowance, of £18,830 or £400 a week, give or take a couple of bob.
The seven chairmen of the main committees also recieved a 150% increase in their SRAs: up from £2,725 to £6,658 , which,together with their basic allowance, enabled them to pocket £12,000 a year for what is virtually a sinecure.
The vice-chairmen, whose sole function is to sit around for two years waiting for their turn in the chair, were given a 27% increase, leaving them to pick 7.5K
In addition to these up-front payments, all these notables also had the privilege of being able to hop into their cars and charge a highly lucrative 43p per mile in travelling expenses.
Now one of my top moles has faxed me some information, downloaded from the Welsh Assembly website, on the "Recommended Levels of Remuneration and SRAs for Leading Councillors in the Median Group of Authorities based on Population Size and Budgets."
These recommendations are based on a study by Birmingham University which must have been commissioned before the ink was dry on Prof Boyne's report which was published just 18 months ago.
The Birmingham study proposes that the basic allowance for all councillors should be increased from the present £5,325 to £9,907. - based on 90 hours a month at £12.51 an hour, plus £900 for telephone costs etc.
In addition SRAs will be massively increased with Leader Maurice Hughes receiving £25,530 compared to £13,000, doubling his present stipend, including basic allowance, from £19,000 to £35,437
It is almost enough to move me to shed a tear for Eric Harries who would, undoubtedly, still be Leader had not the voters of Hubberston given him the boot at the May 1999 elections.
Under the new system of local government, there will be a 6-8 person cabinet running the council.
You can confidently place your bets on eight, for the simple reason that members will always seek to maximise their chances of getting a seat on the gravy train.
And gravy aplenty there will be, because the recommendation is that these cabinet members should be paid £22,672, as will the deputy leader - currently Cllr John Allen-Mirehouse, the Laird of Angle.
In addition to the cabinet, the new proposals envisage the setting up of "scrutiny committees", to hold the cabinet to account along the same lines as the parliamentary select committees which are currently in the news.
I have no idea how many of these scrutiny committees are envisaged, but given that their chairmen will be paid £17,566 a year, and their vice-chairmen £15,000, you can bet the house that they will be pretty thick on the ground.
And, it seems, the gravy train will have some extra carriages, because chairs of other "regulatory" committees (licensing, planning etc), will receive £15,000 while their vice-chairmen will get £12,500.
Even the minority parties will benefit, with the leader of the principal opposition group - currently Joyce Watson (Lab) - being in line for a salary of £17,500 - and other minority group leaders, provided they have 10% of the seats (six in Pembrokeshire) being entitled to £12,500.
A rough calculation yields the conclusion that these "reforms" will cost the Pembrokeshire taxpayer some £1 million - enough to employ 50 extra teachers - though it should be pointed out that the Welsh Assembly has put a cap on the cost by requiring that not more than half of the 60 members should benefit from these generous arrangements.
And for what?
To maintain a bunch of the, mainly, tired and retired, many of who no sensible employer would pay with washers, in the manner to which they will soon become accustomed.
The only hope is that some of the old fogies, who currently hold sway, will be trampled underfoot in the rush for the trough.
It seems that the Welsh Assembly doesn't have confidence in the electorate to do the necessary, because the Birmingham study, which local government minister Edwina Hart says she is "minded" to accept, contains a proposal that veteran councillors should be encouraged to step down voluntarily by the offer of £10,000 "severance payments".
Cheaper to wait for the grim reaper to call, I would have thought.
The rationale for these changes is contained in the old adage that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys, or to use the official version: the extra allowances are designed to encourage more people of ability to stand for council.
The present membership of the County Council is a powerful argument for the peanuts/monkeys connection. However, what is also true is that doubling the monkeys' peanut rations will not transform them into organ grinders.
During the debate on Prof Boyne's proposals, which were published just six months after the last elections, the Tory leader on the council Phil Llewellyn argued, unsuccessfully, that, as we were stuck with the present inhabitants of the zoo (though he put it more delicately than that) for the next three-and-a-half years the time to bring in these changes would be just before the next elections.
Now I hear that the local elections have been put back for a year, to May 2004, so the same argument applies.
Not that I expect logic to persuade the members to postpone their excursion on the gravy train.
Quite a few of them must now be regretting their opposition to the Welsh Assembly which, rather than turning out to be an expensive talking shop, as they predicted, has become their fairy godmother.