While appearing NOT to have ANY Traffic problem in this Sicilian town of 960, it employs  NINE (9) people which might appear ludicrous, BUT 8 of the nine are only Half time Employees and earn only $12,000 a year, and costs each citizen about  27 cents a day per capita.
 
I see this as part of the continuing effort to mock and demean Italy. To take a small town in Sicily that comprises 1 Thousand out of 60 MILLION, and costs 27cents a day per capita as newsworthy, is almost infantile.

New York Times, By Rachel Donadio; September 14, 2011;Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting from Rome
PHOTO: Comitini, Italy, population 960, does not appear to have major traffic problems, but it still employs 9 people to manage the flow. 

COMITINI, Sicily, Italy " With only 960 residents and a handful of roads, this tiny hilltop village in the arid, sulfurous hills of southern Sicily does not appear to have major traffic problems. But that does not prevent it from having one full-time traffic officer" and eight auxiliaries. 

The auxiliaries, who earn a respectable 800 euros a month, or $1,100, to work 20 hours a week, are among about 64 Comitini residents employed by the town, the product of an entrenched jobs-for-votes system pervasive in Italian politics at all levels. 

?Jobs like these have kept this city alive,? said Caterina Valenti, 41, an auxiliary in a neat blue uniform as she sat recently with two colleagues, all on duty, drinking coffee in the town?s bar on a hot afternoon. ?You see, here we are at the bar, we support the economy this way.? 

But what may be saving Comitini?s economy is precisely what is strangling Italy?s and other ailing economies throughout Europe. Public spending has driven up the public debt to 120 percent of gross domestic product, the highest percentage in the euro zone after Greece?s. In recent weeks, concerns about Italy?s solvency and the shaky finances of other deeply indebted European nations have sapped market confidence and spread fears about the stability of the euro itself. 

On Wednesday, Italy?s lower house of Parliament gave final passage to a $74 billion austerity package aimed at eliminating Italy?s budget deficit by 2013. But analysts doubt that the measures ? primarily tax increases but also cuts in aid to local governments, a higher retirement age for women in the private sector and a change in Italy?s labor law to make it easier for companies to hire and fire ? will achieve the advertised savings. 

Many of the cuts in financing for local governments may yet be bargained away in annual budget negotiations to be held this year, and nowhere in the legislation are there any measures to reduce the salaries or the number of public sector employees, more than 80 percent of whom have lifetime tenure. But they would lose some retirement benefits, and a hiring freeze is already in place. 

Financial markets have remained edgy, with yields on Italian bonds rising to a record high of 5.7 percent at auction this week, before rallying a bit after the government passed a confidence vote on the austerity measures. Investors remain unconvinced, though, fearing a possible downgrading of Italy?s credit rating, which could further drag down the euro, and there is already talk of the government introducing additional austerity measures. 

?I have great doubts about whether they?re sufficient,? Stefano Micossi, an economist and the director of Assonime, an Italian business research group, said of the austerity package. ?The mechanisms that led to such spending haven?t changed.? 

The sticking point, he added, was the public sector. ?The big problem is the public administration,? he said. ?It?s inefficient and corrupt. But corruption is born in politics and politicians don?t want to change.? 

Italy is contending with a public debt, built up under a succession of Christian Democratic governments, that helped the country emerge from dire poverty after World War II to become Europe?s third-largest industrial economy. 

Especially in the poorer Italian south, the Christian Democrats put millions of people on the state payroll in a jobs-for-votes system that many say has persisted under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The quid pro quo worked so long as the economy was expanding, but now is seen as one of the major threats to Italy?s solvency. 

In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, an estimated 3.5 million Italians were on the state payroll out of a work force of 23 million, according to the Ministry for the Public Administration and Innovation. On Mr. Berlusconi?s watch, government expenditures                    "including the cost of public administration and defense"   rose to more than $1 trillion in 2010 from $753 billion in 2000. 

Analysts attribute some of the rise to the introduction of the euro in 2001 and the rising cost of pension spending in a nation that will soon have more retirees than workers, as well as to soaring health care costs. 

But they say it also stems from deals Mr. Berlusconi has made with powerful politicians from both the north and the south to get the votes needed to hold together his government. Those votes mean the government is loath to stop the flow of money. Even with the new austerity measures, "They haven?t closed the taps", Mr. Micossi said. Some say the jobs-for-votes mentality derives from Italy?s feudal heritage. Italy was a patchwork of warring fiefs before unification 150 years ago, and personal networks are often still seen as more powerful than institutions. 

Even today, the concept is: "I understand the state if it gives a benefit to my person, family, business", said Luigi Musella, a historian at the University of Naples and the author of "Clientelism", about Italy?s quid pro quo politics. 

For his part, Nino Contino, the mayor of Comitini since 2002, is proud that he has used public money to create jobs. 

?I know that 60 people in a town of 1,000 is a good number, it?s a lot," Mr. Contino, 49, said of his city?s employees. "But if I didn?t let them work, these people would have to go work in America. That?s 60 people with 60 families looking for work elsewhere." 

?Besides," he added, "the city doesn?t pay them. The state and the region do." Indeed, Comitini?s city employees are paid 90 percent by the regional government and 10 percent by the town. 

?This town lacks for nothing", Mr. Contino added, as he showed off the town?s library, with a children?s play area and an extensive collection of Sicilian history books, including a rare 10-volume set of the "History of Feudalism." 

Upstairs, a small museum featured Arab-Norman pottery fragments and an exhibition on the nearby sulfur mines that employed as many as 10,000 people before they closed in the 1950s and 1960s, forcing many residents to retire early and others to emigrate. 

Beyond its 960 residents, the town counts 3,000 emigrants registered to vote there, said Mr. Contino, whose main job is as a specialist in cellulite reduction. 

Some residents are concerned that the new austerity measures mean that money for local employees might dry up. But Mr. Contino said he was not worried. "I don?t think that?s a risk. Here, there?s a culture of maintaining jobs". he said. "Political will here is relative". he added. 

Yet the cuts to regional spending in the austerity measures are real, even if changes to local government will likely take years to apply. "We can?t touch salaries". Raffaele Lombardo, the president of the Region of Sicily, said in a telephone interview, "But now it?s certain that hiring will be blocked for many years."

Back in Comitini, residents began to gather in the main piazza. A city council member was getting married in the church. Cars stopped and parked beneath a "no parking" sign while their drivers hopped out for a coffee in the bar. 

Inside, Ms. Valenti and her colleagues said they were not much inclined to give parking tickets. "We try to avoid giving fines," she said.     "It?s a small town, we all know one another." 
 
 

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