Representative Anthony Sabatini has filed a bill to begin the constitutional amendment process imposing 8-year term limits on county school board members. Similar bills have been filed in the past including last year where the measure died in the Senate. It is about time that this is passed including term limits on other local elected offices.

Being a town council member or county commissioner was never meant to be your job. Serving on these elected boards was to be a public service much as membership on the United Way Board. It wasn’t meant to be your career. Yet for many that is what it has become.

Too often being a local official is seen as a gateway to higher office. Though in Martin County you usually do not go on to state or federal office. At first being a municipal or county commissioner was like being on a board of a non-profit. Then two things happened that made it into a job.

The first was the concept of being paid. That turned the position of elected office from volunteer into employee. Then once a paycheck was received, the elected officials thought they should also have employee benefits including medical and retirement. Being a commissioner or school board member now had perks worth fighting to retain term after term.

The second reason that a public volunteer went to being a public employee was how complexed government has become. It takes years to master the intricacies of how the government functions. In some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing through the government’s coffers each year. The programs have labyrinthine rules that require experts to know the finer points.

Yet commissioners were never meant to “run” the government only oversee the manager or administrator who is doing so. Their function is to preside over their policy being implemented. Whether you agree with the concept or not of “strong manager-weak commission,” that is what we have in Martin County. Broad policies are what elected boards are supposed to enact not become entangled with the minutia of everyday management. The managers are the experts and are paid accordingly.

I agree that elected officials should have a stipend to help pay for things like attending events. The minute that stipend turns into a paycheck of thousands of dollars the incentive to leave office is not very strong. Throw in medical for you and your family and retirement benefits and thoughts like career and job become attached to the alluring sound of being called commissioner or school board member.

Recently the City of Stuart voters approved a charter change that imposed 3 four-year term limits on individual commissioners. The Charter Review Board had initially wanted only 2 four-year terms. The commission before sending to the voters for a referendum had changed made sure that 3 terms was guaranteed.

Expecting boards to impose reasonable term limits is not realistic. Even in Stuart’s case the 12 years begins with the present commissioners’ new terms. In effect giving everyone a clean slate. Some members on the Charter Review wanted to limit the commission’s ability to vote themselves a raise. That was a non-starter with the commission.

I am not picking on Stuart, but you are asking the people who have an entrenched interest to limit their time in the job and the amount of money they are paid for doing it. It simply is not going to happen. It is time for Tallahassee to do so for them.

Term limits and a look at pay and benefits for local office are in order by the Florida Legislature. Being on a board should be a public service and not a career. Thinking that the voters should decide on limiting time in office through voting the rascals out is somewhat meaningless. That only happens when the incumbent has done something flagrantly awful. With the three Stuart commissioners running for re-election recently only one drew a challenger. And with the county commission only one of the three seats for election had an opponent.

Those thinking of running wait for open seats. That was the case with the fourth seat in Stuart when a long-time commissioner stepped down in the middle of her term to run for another office. That open race drew two people. The way to have new people run is to remove the perks and pay and do what non-profit boards do which is limit the terms people can serve. In that way we can make public employees into public servants again.