THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, January 6, 1995                TAG: 9501060010
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A10  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   45 lines

RAISING HACKLES ALONG WITH DIRECTOR'S PAY A WHOLE LOTTO STUPID

For Pete's sake: Who couldn't know that the barrel of bucks in the governor's budget for the lottery director's 22 percent raise - yep, 22 percent - would become a barrel of bugs?

Lottery director Penelope Kyle, hired last June, has asked Gov. George Allen to withdraw that particular budget request. She will make do with the 2.25 percent raise the governor requests for state employees generally.

Good. The bad part is, this flap should never have happened, yet will haunt the governor's downsizing efforts. Governor Allen should have known better than to promise Ms. Kyle a whopping raise on a starting salary of about $95,000. This, while the best other state employees can expect are no pink slip and the 2.25 percent raise. Supporters of the Allen cutbacks should have sounded an alarm about the Kyle raise long before critics of it could.

Ms. Kyle, formerly a corporate vice president with CSX, took a sizable pay cut as lottery director. To get the best into public service, the governor's spokesman says, the state must pay competitively. But sometimes the best is too expensive, the really good will do - and since when was public service about paychecks alone? Surely among 6.5 million Virginians were three or four folks able and willing to serve as lottery director for the $94,676 paid Ms. Kyle's predecessor. And, critics have wondered, since her predecessor was a white male, was the governor paying a premium for gender?

Ms. Kyle feared that the salary cut would jeopardize the ability of her and her lawyer husband to provide their young children a suitable private education. Quick: How many parents are putting their children through private school on two incomes well short of $95,000 a year? And how's that for a gesture of confidence in the efficacy of education reforms Governor Allen is pursuing?

If all this sounds familiar - ``friends of Bill'' without the illegal nannies - it should. The hot buttons this incident pushes were predictable, and therefore avoidable. Surely some friends of George can muster the moxie to sound the stupid alert. Surely the governor can learn to heed them. by CNB