[MaggieL]

Originally posted by sycamore

Past experience tells me that more affluent areas tend to pay better in the social services field...

"More affluent areas" have higher costs-of-living, so they must pay more for the same work. If you decided to locate in some parts of Mongomerty County you'd have totally nasty COL....and that's one reason I'm no longer in King of Prussia, for example....Jeffersonville is somewhat nearer high-crime (Norristown) and doesn'thave as nice a school district; UMASD is world-class. But since the kids (the remaining kid still in school, actually) legal residence is still in UM that doesn't matter, so I'm here on the other side of the river, because I could afford a house here.

Other parts are very reasonable, and I would expect cheaper than many places inside the city. Of course, many of those parts may not be *near* anything in particular; much of this county is still semirural, (but watch this space).

But if the shortage you say is there is really there, why hasn't it driven up the salaries? Maybe the demand is somewhat elastic; the *quality* of social services is probably not closely monitored by the taxpayers.

Nah...we could at least afford Cheltenham or Abington. But any extra money I would have by living outside the city would probably be offset up by higher rent and transportation expenses.

Where did the county want you to work? Cheltenham and Abington are in fact in Montgomery County, but not by much; they're almost inside the city. Living in Abington and working at the county Intermediate Unit here in West Norriton would not make sense, for example. Some commutes totally outside the city are cheaper and faster than many commutes totally inside the city.

Others are nearly impossiible.

I believe that folks like teachers and social workers are grossly underpaid for the work they do. Let's offer a little incentive here, and tie it to some objective points of accountability.

I beleive that's very true too. I haven't detected much enthusiasm for accountability measures for teachers in the city. UMASD is world-class probably because it pays somewhat better, they spend more on the kids in other ways, and the working conditions are *vastly* better than a city school. I don't know what objective points of accountability they may need to meet, but I do know my kids grew up well-educated there.

I kinda doubt that could be translated to the city just by more salary money and objective standards, though. When somebody at UMASD is a bad teacher, the whole town knows about it in fairly short order; they don't last.