Utah County commissioners today are expected to increase their $94,692 annual salaries about 8 percent, along with the salaries of other elected officials. Given the economic realities their constituents are facing, this seems out of line.

Take Davis County, with only 60 percent of Utah County's population. Commissioners there make $6,000 a year more than Utah County's. The Davis County attorney makes $30,000 a year more than his counterpart in Utah County.

Even so, this seems a poor time to be raising government salaries. Many people are struggling with food prices, jobs and rising housing costs -- the latter brought on last year by actions of this same county commission.

The average family is paying $200 more every month just on gasoline compared to a year ago. A raise for commissioners right now would erase any pain commissioners might personally feel in connection with $4 gasoline. Meanwhile, the rest of us must continue to suffer.

Many taxpayers are still smarting from last year's sharp property assessment hikes; and the Provo School District just raised tax rates, too. All this might have drawn a shrug or a grumble even a year ago, but taxpayers today are getting testy.

This is a time for financial caution, not largesse. Commissioners, like good military leaders, should spend some time suffering with the troops. We don't need a bunch of chateau generals calling the shots while living comfortably away from the financial battlefront.

We also object to the continual "race to the top" in public salaries. Governmental Body X raises its salaries, and similar bodies howl that it's a glaring injustice if they cannot raise theirs. The resulting upward spiral never requires much reason. It's nothing but an arbitrary keeping up with the Jones's.

This is not to suggest that commissioners or other elected officials are doing a bad job. We merely observe that a great many workers around here are living with 2 or 3 percent raises, if they get a raise at all.

A performance-based system would be better than the whim system of government compensation. For example, commissioners could create a regulation under which their salaries would rise 3 percent each year that tax bills stay the same. Bonuses could be awarded at a rate of, say, 1 percent for every 1 percent the tax burden goes down. On the other hand, if property and other tax bills go up, commissioners should get the same percentage cut.

Whatever the mechanism, we'd rather base compensation on results, not on what other counties are paying. Utah is in the top five states nationally in total tax burden even while enduring unique financial stresses that come with families 50 percent larger than the national average.

On the other hand, it's fair to ask whether the job of the county commission is becoming more difficult? It probably is not. Every year more county land is incorporated into cities, thereby reducing the county's jurisdiction. Someday, perhaps, Utah County's three commissioners might enjoy high salaries but have little more to do than authorize requisitions for oatmeal and bed sheets at the county jail.

Finally, pay raises that take immediate effect are always a bad idea. That's why the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was enacted. Sitting officials who hold the purse strings should keep their fingers out of the purse until they have the consent of voters.

The text of the 27th Amendment points the way: "No law varying the compensation for the services of [elected representatives] shall take effect until an election ... shall have intervened." This means you can't have your raise until after the voters send you back into office. This was a good idea back in 1789 when it was submitted to the states, and it's still a good idea today.

The Utah County Commission is not bound by the 27th Amendment, of course, but a similar principle should operate at the state and county level. The power to raise one's own salary is a combustible one, and if voters come to feel that commissioners are padding their wallets at taxpayer expense, they should register their resentment at the polls.

Raises in a difficult economy should be reserved, it seems to us, for elected officials whose particular skills are the most difficult to replace -- the county sheriff and county attorney, for example.

If the compensation question were reduced to basic supply and demand, we'd say there are plenty of qualified people around who would be willing to sit on the county commission for a lot less than $94,692 a year.