Children's Campus employees not valued or paid enough

Editor,

According to the payroll directory on reserve in Zimmerman Library, President David Schmidly makes almost $400,000 annually. David Harris, his executive vice president, makes almost $300,000 a year. While these cats speak of saving money in this time of economic strife, child care providers at the UNM Children's Campus make less than $20,000 a year. That means minimum wage in most cases.

These workers provide day-to-day supervision for UNM's children, including the children of scholars, students, staff and faculty. The staff at the Children's Campus is responsible for supervision, education and socialization of children anywhere from 2 months to 12 years of age. These jobs are of huge responsibility and importance to families, kids and the future of the world, yet the salaries equate little respect for their efforts.

Taco Bell pays its cashiers more by the hour, and it seems they have high turnover rates. The last thing we want is a high turnover rate for the care providers of our children.

Jeffrey Waldo

UNM student