Post-election hirings and firings are to be expected, but that doesn’t make them right.

Tax Assessor/Collector Rita Goss recently fired two employees in her office and gave another employee a $20,000 pay increase. The move stinks of post-election retribution and reward. Goss lost to Republican Blake Pickering on Nov. 3.

Hirings and firings following elections are not uncommon — when Goss was elected in 2011, she terminated the employment of several in the tax assessor/collector’s office.

Those who were terminated then claimed to have had no work-related write-ups or other signs that their services were less than satisfactory. Some of those employees ran against Goss in 2011, and she promptly taught them a lesson. Is this how we want our government to function? Is this how we want our tax dollars spent?

Goss is well within her rights to hire and fire as she sees fit. But again, it stinks of reward and retribution. But until the state changes its laws regarding the operation of elected offices, this will continue.

We encourage Pickering to not play the same games with the livelihoods of tax office employees. Keeping competent, trained individuals in the office should be his goal, not punishing employees simply because they worked for his predecessor.