A legislative inquiry into the salaries of public sector employees is causing indignation among politicians, labor unions and the public in Costa Rica.

Legislator Otto Guevara, a former presidential candidate representing the Libertarian Movement, has been leading a series of inquiries into the payrolls of government institutions as well as government-sponsored entities such as the Costa Rican Institute on Electricity and the University of Costa Rica. The findings thus far indicate that quite a few jobs in the government sector pay very handsome salaries when compared to the same occupations in the private sector.

In the past, the only government payrolls that have been placed under scrutiny have been those of the Ministry of Public Education (mostly school teachers) and the Legislative Assembly, and public opinion in those two cases has generally been that teachers are underpaid and legislators do not make outrageous amounts of money. This time, however, the public is in an uproar over the salaries of occupations such as on-call physicians, administrative assistants, marketing consultants, journalists, and office clerks working for the government.

One of the latest government institutions to undergo a payroll audit in Costa Rica has been the Municipal Consulting and Development Institute (Spanish acronym: IFAM), where administrative assistants are paid approximately $2,604 per month while their private sector counterparts make between $613 and $970 on a monthly basis. This information was obtained by political reporter Rebeca Madrigal of online news daily CRHoy.com.

Out of 118 IFAM employees, 64 make at least $2,000 per month,14 make twice as much and one of them takes home more than $6,000 per month. Two interesting salaries at the IFAM include a marketing consultant, who makes more than $5,000 per month, and an on-call doctor, who clocked in less than eight hours of work in four weeks and was paid more than $4,000 for her services.

IFAM has gone on the defensive over this investigation, explaining that some of the salaries paid have been higher in some months due to payment of bonuses, overtime and adjustments. Such was the case of journalist paid more $4,600 for the month of May, but then it was determined that his regular pay is closer to $3,800, which is still considerably more than the minimum wage for this profession, which in Costa Rica is currently around $1,500 per month.

Another explanation offered by IFAM is that most of its employees have worked at that entity for more than 20 years, which has caused even more indignation among those who think nepotism runs rampant in government hiring circles.