Fond fantasy: Judges send such idiot officials to prison for ~50 years. And that is repeated so often that we start seeing occasional grown-ups in municipal offices.
But, if you think it's hard to get good people to do thankless work for $40k/yr now, just try doing it when the last couple people in that chair are in prison for a few decades right now.
True...though (at least in my part of the US) there seem to be plenty of junior-high-escapee municipal officials making vastly more than that.
Another Fond Fantasy: People who get really nasty with bottom-tier civil servants, over decisions which are obviously made much further up the org chart, face mental competence hearings. If you're screaming anger at a part-time retail postal clerk, over stamp prices that are set by officials in Washington DC...maybe we need to X-ray you head, before it's too late.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/hundreds-of-seatt...
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/374-seatt...
“The median gross pay among SPD’s more than 2,000 employees last year was about $153,000, not including benefits, with 374 employees grossing at least $200,000 and 77 making at least $250,000, according to a Times analysis”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyork-pension/public-wo...
> For example, a police officer with a history of zero overtime worked more than 800 hours of overtime in his last years on the job, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate said in a report.
"The gross pay numbers cloak some details, because they combine regular and overtime pay; SPD uses overtime to staff emphasis patrols, sports events and other special events, such as parades and protests. It spent more than $34 million in overtime pay in 2019.
Last year’s gross numbers are also somewhat skewed, because members of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) received lump-sum retroactive raises from 2015-2018, when they worked under an expired contract.
The retroactive payments help explain why SPD’s median gross pay rose from about $105,000 in 2017 and $104,000 in 2018 to $153,000 in 2019, and why 20 employees leapfrogged Best in gross pay from 2017 to 2019."
The $153k median is skewed due to - median backpay of around $35k for 3 years, so in reality median base pay is around $115k.
Politicians the same - most of them could dream of making the kind of money they're making as higher govermental officials with their skills, most of them are slimy opportunists that simply want live off taxpayer money.
That’s because the people doing their job properly don’t get noticed, except maybe by the people directly served (and most of them just take it for granted) while the ones like those under discussiom get covered in national news and discussion sites with a global audience.
It is a felony with a punishment of imprisonment for up to 10 years and/or fines of up to $5,000, but that is a separate issue from the civil suit. RCW 40.16.020