In January 2006, I penned an editorial against linking county supervisor salaries to those of Amador Superior Court judges, with automatic pay increases without public review, comment or vote.

I received very few responses agreeing with that opinion. In fact, several heated discussions with former and current supervisors ensued, with many expressing considerable outrage. In the end, supervisors voted to pace their salary increases at 40 percent of judges' pay hikes, not surprising since the state was heavily lobbied by the Association of California State Supervisors and its political action committee on this matter.

I wonder if at next week's meeting - as the county discusses cutting about $1 million from the budget by eliminating cost of living adjustment pay increases for eligible staff, laying off 10 to 15 positions and suggesting unpaid furloughs - the supervisors will suggest turning away the 21.5 percent pay increase they received as of July 1. I doubt it.

Twenty-eight county employees applied for and were granted an early retirement incentive program, including Health and Human Services Agency Director Tracy Russell and Jackie Steele, director of social services. Russell was already gone when Editor Raheem Hosseini made calls last week about today's MACT story. The other departing employees will leave by the end of December. The early retirement incentive program is projected to save the county $100,000 this fiscal year, more next year.

On Tuesday, board chair Richard Forster asked County Administrative Officer Terri Daly to track the number of vacated positions the county has decided not to refill, to counter critics calling for layoffs. Daly pointed out that a county hiring freeze has been in effect since March 2007 and there have been a number of positions that were left unfilled. One of the higher profile exceptions has been the recent addition of Kristin Bengyel, who assumed the deputy CAO role that had been empty since Daly moved up from it more than two years ago.

It's estimated the county will save $200,000 through the voluntary furlough program in the coming fiscal year. And with $1 million in cuts left to be made, discussing supervisors' salary increases hasn't even been mentioned as a possibility, at least not publicly. Meanwhile, unionized county employees are bucking strongly against the idea of choosing to forgo a week of paid work.

The county is also looking at streamlining outdated and conflicting codes, redistributing responsibilities to avoid outside hiring and looking at how county government can be more efficient. In a phrase, doing more with less. Daly has added the role of interim Health and Human Services director, while Bengyel added interim land use director as a title. "We will work hard on not just a superficial reorganization," Daly told supervisors Tuesday. That's a good thing. Too bad she isn't getting more help.

To be fair, the supervisors' salary jump from $4,291.20 a month to $5,214.68 (or 35 percent of what superior court judges make) would not dent the estimated $1 million in needed cuts.

However, if I were a county employee and was told I was about to have a mandatory unpaid vacation, was about to lose any cost of living increase for the coming year, and 15 co-workers were about to become unemployed, I'd feel a whole lot better knowing that the supervisors (the CEOs of the county, in business terms) were feeling my pain.

"I think we are trying to cut back," District 5 Supervisor Brian Oneto said at Tuesday's meeting. With the current jobs and housing downturns, he added, "We would hate for people to have the perception that we're just going along like everything's OK."

And perhaps my audacity to suggest Amador supervisors lead by example in these tough economic times is still out of place. But we'll never really know because this subject isn't up for debate or negotiation, public review or vote. Still, I am hopeful in the coming months that - as supervisors deal with diminished staff, workers struggling without cost of living increases and families sitting home during the holidays without pay - supervisors will question whether they should have placed themselves in the same boat as their employees.

And who knows, maybe the voters and taxpayers will start to question the board of supervisors on automatic pay increases. Maybe we'll even look at pay raises that occurred for managers and department heads who then agreed to furlough days after banking their 12 percent salary increases.

Or maybe we'll just bury our heads in the sand and let it happen all over again.